


Bringing Home the Rain

by dandyqueen



Category: The Last of Us, The Last of Us (Video Games)
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Smut, Friends to Lovers, Gen, Mutual Pining, Not Canon Compliant, Shameless Smut, joel also gets the good good, joel learns to talk about his feelings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:00:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 63,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26055352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dandyqueen/pseuds/dandyqueen
Summary: Joel doesn't talk about his feelings, and Lucy's just as bad. Tommy's about as frustrated as a brother can get. But Tommy knows one thing: if Joel's not gonna chase what's right in front of him, Tommy's just going to have to lead him to it.Maybe a five-hundred mile trudge through the ice and snow surrounded by wild animals and clickers will help with that.Clap your hands if Knife Dad deserves a little happiness.
Relationships: Joel (The Last of Us)/Original Character(s), Joel (The Last of Us)/Original Female Character(s), Maria/Tommy (The Last of Us)
Comments: 55
Kudos: 136





	1. dream unwind, love's a state of mind

**Author's Note:**

> If you're here because you read my fire in the blood series: bless your sweet heart, thank you.
> 
> If you're here for the smut: gimme a minute, the spicy stuff is coming.
> 
> If you're here for the story: let's do this.

** August 2035 – Jackson, Wyoming **

“...and now, here’s some Conway Twitty to end our broadcast tonight.”

Lucy flipped the switch on the Jackson radio station’s control console, and the beginning strains of _Hello, Darlin’_ filled the room. After nearly a year of taking the radio station’s control consoles apart and putting them back together, she’d finally managed to get the place up and running.

The radio station hadn’t been manned in at least fifteen years, not since the original citizens of Jackson had fled (or died), so it was pretty derelict by the time Lucy decided to fix it up. But fix it up she did, and now Jackson, Wyoming, had a fully functioning radio station. It didn’t have a huge music selection, but it had enough to keep the town satisfied.

She flipped the switch on the old microphone she’d managed to hook up to the control console so she could broadcast. “Don’t forget, curfew is at 11PM. That means you, Ellie.”

Night had long since fallen, and it was nearing 10PM. Lucy had been at the radio station for about five hours, ever since she left her patrol shift. She tried to keep her sets around four hours long, but tonight was special, so the broadcast was longer. Tonight, a couple of the older teenagers were getting married.

Weddings were rare nowadays, so anytime someone in Jackson got married, the whole town turned out (whether they were invited or not). Everyone chipped in, regardless of whether they were friendly with the couple. Weddings were an excuse to socialize and party, and you can’t have a party without music. And, as the radio station’s occasional operator, Lucy had been asked to provide the music.

It was really getting late, though, and Lucy figured she’d done her due diligence. The partiers would just have to break out the instruments from the music room if they wanted to keep the party going, which, by the time Lucy finished packing her bag so she could lock up, it sounded like they’d already formed a rudimentary band down at the community center. Her two interns - two of the older teens who’d found a love for music – were likely the ringleaders there. They’d long since gone down to the community center to enjoy the night. She figured it was high time she joined the party and made an appearance. 

She didn’t often go down to the community center, but neither did the other adults. It was meant to be a safe place for the older kids to socialize and a good place to drop off the younger kids for the night so all the parents could finally get some peace and quiet. But again, tonight was special – even the adults would be there tonight.

The community center was two blocks down from the radio station. It functioned as the church, the town hall, and the venue for pretty much everything. Tonight, it was decorated in white tablecloths (well, white-ish) and garland. Hell, the whole street was lined in gleaming golden streamers and signs announcing the time of the wedding. Lucy could smell the food all the way from the radio station.

Even after two years in Jackson, Lucy was still amazed by the community. Jackson was a wholly different place than anywhere else Lucy had lived over the past two decades. It was a real, cohesive town full of people who genuinely wanted to help each other and make the place work, not a conglomerate of hunters or two or three nearly cannibalistic families fighting to trick people into staying. It was nothing like the militia camps she'd lived in off and on for so many years, nor the quarantine zone where she’d been stuck the first ten years after Outbreak Day. This was a _good_ place. 

Most importantly, it was filled with good people.

Lucy slipped in through the side door of the community center where the kitchens were located. She’d missed the ceremony and the dinner, but there were more than enough leftovers for her to grab a plate for dinner and one to take home later. As she loaded up her plate with food, she could hear the strains of a guitar and someone singing, all intermingled with people laughing and dancing.

Once she was satisfied that her plate was sufficiently mountainous, she tiptoed into the community center, hoping to circumvent anyone who might snag her to dance. She picked Maria out of the crowd and pushed her way through the thickets of people, hunching over her plate like it was her last lifeline to the world (she forgot to eat lunch). 

“How was the wedding?” Lucy asked, bumping Maria’s elbow with her own. Bad idea – the sandwich on her plate slid to the edge and the mountain of chips she’d managed to pile on teetered precariously.

“Oh, it was lovely. Beautiful ceremony, beautiful bride, went off without a hitch,” Maria picked one of the chips off of Lucy’s plate before it could fall. Lucy swatted her hand halfheartedly. “And no fights.”

“Huh,” Lucy hummed. Now, that was a surprise. She’d already put money down on at least one good cold-clock during the course of the night. “Figured ol’ Mark Johnson would’ve taken a swing at the groom, being that his daughter is walking down the aisle without his permission.”

Maria snorted. “And pregnant.”

“Shit, really?” Lucy asked around a mouthful of her sandwich. She swallowed and brushed away the crumbs when Maria gave her a withering look. “Sorry, darlin’. When did she find out?”

“Last week. Said she got dizzy and threw up in one of the garden patches, so she went to see Doc.” Maria motioned over to the table she and Tommy staked out to watch the ceremony. “She spent the whole morning in the bathroom.”

“Yikes,” Lucy said. She followed Maria through the crowd over to the table. “Been there.”

Maria looked back over her shoulder. “I had to help the bride’s mother hold her hair back while she puked.”

“Lucky her – I had to hold my own hair back.”

Maria gave her another withering look, but Lucy just shrugged. She reached over to squeeze Tommy’s shoulder and sat down in the chair directly next to him. “Mark doesn’t know yet. Allegedly.”

“Nah, he knows.” Lucy sat down next to her, right in front of Tommy, and faced the room so she could be nosy. Man, it was good to know those small-town mannerisms never truly faded. She spotted the bride and groom in question - a pair of eighteen-year-olds, one of whom looking decidedly green. Dad wasn’t too far off; he was sulking in the corner and looking mightily disgruntled. “Dads always know.”

“I think you might be right,” Maria replied, spotting Mark in the crowd, too. “He’s gonna be grumpy as hell on his shift tomorrow morning.”

“Thank goodness I’m not going to be down at the power plant tomorrow,” Lucy said. Oh, yeah, Mark was looking surly over there in the corner. His wife, Tina, stood next to him, obviously trying to play the middleman and talk him down, but he seemed nearly inconsolable. “I would _not_ want to be a fly on the wall in that house tonight.”

Tommy, who up until that moment had been mentally elsewhere, entranced by the makeshift band playing, broke his gaze away from whoever was picking away on the guitar. “Speaking of the power plant, how’s the dam looking?”

Lucy sighed. She’d been hoping to get around talking about this tonight, but no dice. “It’s functional.”

“How functional is _functional_?”

Unfortunately, _functional_ was really the only way to put it. It wasn’t spectacular, but it wasn’t breaking down with as much regularity as of late since Lucy and the other two engineers had figured out how to fix some of the mechanisms themselves. The power stayed on fairly consistently, but it flickered too often for Lucy’s comfort. It wasn’t a popular opinion, but she was of the belief that they’d end up with a serious problem come winter.

“It’ll hold for a while – maybe through the winter, if we’re lucky,” Lucy said. “But we’re gonna have to make the trip to Cheyenne soon. Once winter rolls around, I’m not too sure the power plant will hold up under all the snow.”

Maria sighed. “I was really hopin’ you weren’t going to say that.”

“No point in sugarcoating it,” Lucy replied. Maria hated making the yearly trip to Cheyenne, since it was just her and Lucy. Lucy hated it even more than she did, but it was just something that had to be done. “You know, there’s a hospital near there, too. I think it be worth it to stop in and look around. We could use more supplies for the med stop.”

Tommy cocked his head, “You don’t mean Northside Medical, do you?”

“That’s the one.”

“Isn’t that the hospital…?”

Lucy huffed, cutting him off. “Yeah, it is.”

“You sure you’d be okay going back there?” Tommy asked. Lucy hated when he got that look on his face – concerned in a way that always made her feel like she was being reckless. Tommy always meant well, and Lucy knew it, but the big brother routine drove her nuts sometimes.

“It’s deserted now,” Lucy replied with finality. “Probably nothin’ but runners and clickers left.”

"If you're sure…"

"I'm _sure_ , Tommy."

“Well, we’ll work on planning for it this week,” Tommy replied, though he obviously didn’t want to. Planning for the Cheyenne trip was a losing battle on all sides, every time.

Maria certainly hated planning for it. She didn’t like anyone leaving Jackson for too long without good reason – or even _with_ good reason - but she’d be the one going with Lucy. She would have to resign herself to being the middleman here, if only to avoid the three-way fight among a bunch of pigheaded mules. “We’ll talk logistics later.”

“Joel’s gonna have a fit,” Tommy sighed. “You know how he gets with the patrol planning.”

“Well, Joel can just have a fit, then,” Lucy sniffed. “Maria and I will be fine. We’ve made this trip before. I certainly know where we’re going. Hell, I see the road in my dreams sometimes.”

“Let’s not talk about this at the wedding. We’re supposed to be having fun,” Maria said gently. She didn’t often back down, but they’d talk themselves in circles if she didn’t break the cycle now. She scanned the room. “Speaking of Joel, where’d he run off to? Did he bail out already?”

Tommy nodded. "Yeah, I think so. Said he was done for the night last time I saw him."

Lucy had been picking at the food still left on her plate, suddenly not hungry enough to finish it. “He’s got patrol with me in the morning, so that’s likely.”

Tommy tried to broach the subject delicately – he really did. “How’s that going?”

“It’s patrol duty. With Joel,” Lucy said, crossing her arms across her chest. She fixed Tommy with an even stare. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing, scheduling us together for almost every patrol.”

“Ain’t trying to hide it.”

“ _Every_ patrol, though, Tommy?”

“Well, if you’d both act like adults and get on with it, maybe I’d stop scheduling you like this.”

Lucy rolled her eyes. “I hope you give him the same pep talks you give me.”

“I do. Don’t neither one of y’all listen.”

“I listen just fine. Tell that to him.”

Lucy pointedly ignored Tommy’s disapproving hum, until she just couldn’t anymore. Maria didn’t even bother to stop whatever Lucy was about to say. Sometimes you have to pick your battles, and Maria was running from this one. Let them argue it out like they always did. They’d kiss and make up and be best buddies again come morning.

Lucy huffed. “Look, he comes to the radio station all the time, we’re on almost every patrol together, he sits on my porch all hours of the night. Don’t you think if he was interested in me like that, he would’ve said something by now?”

“Knowing him?” Tommy asked, incredulous. His brother, Joel? Being honest and forthcoming about his feelings? Perish the thought. “No, I don’t.”

“Because he’s told you differently?”

Tommy nodded. Joel didn’t have to _say it_ necessarily - and he wouldn’t - but Joel was his brother, and nine times out of ten, Tommy knew what was going on in his brother’s head. “In his usual Joel way, yes.”

“And what way is that, Tommy?”

“By God, Lou, do you not see the way he looks at you? I haven’t seen the man pay that much attention to a woman since he was sixteen.”

Lucy shook her head and rose to her feet. “Right, well, it’s late, and I do have patrol in the morning with your brother, so I suppose I should be on my merry way to bed as well.”

Tommy turned around, “Lou, don’t go running off-”

Lucy kissed Maria's cheek and Tommy’s too before squeezing Tommy's shoulder on the way out of the community center.

Maria gave Tommy the special look she reserved for times when he should have kept his mouth shut. “The more you push her, the more she’ll shut down.”

Tommy sighed. “I’m not - I’m not trying to be pushy.”

“She thinks you are.”

“Maria, honey, it’s been almost a year since Joel got here,” Tommy replied. He rubbed his temples because, as much as he loved Lucy and Joel both, he’d never met two people more stubborn (as if he had room to talk). “If I have to watch them stare all moony-eyed at each other one more time -”

Maria took his hand, holding it delicately between both of hers. “You gotta let them get around to it.”

“I just want them to be happy.”

“We all do, Tommy.”

He crossed his arms, hunkering down. “Well, they’re awful damn stubborn about it.”

“I hate to tell you, darlin’, but it’s not as easy as all that. And if I remember correctly, _you_ didn’t exactly come running after me.”

“It’s a family trait,” Tommy conceded, suddenly more interested in picking at his fingernails than looking his wife in the eye. “And you’re a little scary.”

“Well, you and Joel are branches on the same tree,” Maria replied. “They’ll figure it out.”

* * *

** August 2035 – Jackson, Wyoming **

Sunday morning, bright and early, is the best time to take the river routes on patrol around Jackson. The view is beautiful, and there's rarely ever an infected on the river trails. There are a few cliffs that overlook a network of mine shafts, and if you find the right vantage point, you can pick off the infected down in the gully like flies.

Tommy scheduled them together every Sunday morning. Joel knew why he did it. Hell, it's not like Tommy was subtle about it. Tommy thought it was a nice start to the day, and what better way to start the day than a long, paired patrol on a beautiful Sunday morning? Joel couldn't really disagree. He was kind of appreciative, really.

Lucy met Joel by the front gate as she did every Sunday morning, holding a breakfast biscuit and hefting a small leather pack and a rifle. Her hair was still tied up in the same bun from last night; it looked too nice to take it down when she got home, and she had gotten out of bed too early to try to recreate it from scratch. If the deep circles under her eyes were any indication, she was clearly exhausted, but she greeted him with the same bright smile as always.

Like every Sunday morning, Lucy handed Joel a second breakfast biscuit that she'd brought along. She gestured towards the front gate. "Shall we?"

Joel nodded. He had to stop himself from tearing into the biscuit and instead unwrap it neatly. It was one of the small things he looked forward to every week - breakfast on patrol. Doesn't matter if it's just a regular biscuit - the woman could make dirt taste like magic.

Sunday patrol didn't require horses, so there was no need to stop by the stables. They stopped at the waystation by the gate to let the guard on duty know they were leaving on patrol, and he waived them through without comment. It was too early for a full-blown conversation, or really anything more eloquent than a curt good morning.

"Did you make it to the wedding last night?" Joel asked. He'd left before she'd arrived. Not purposefully; he'd had a long day on patrol yesterday and yawned through the entire ceremony, much to Maria's annoyance. Besides, weddings weren't really his thing.

"Yeah, close to the end of the reception," Lucy replied, crunching on her biscuit. "I stopped by after I left the radio station. Anything exciting happen?"

"No, I figured it'd be more exciting, actually. I heard Mark wasn’t too happy his daughter was getting married.”

Lucy snorted. “Well, she’s pregnant, so it’s not really his choice anymore.”

Joel shook his head. “Does he know?”

“Allegedly, no,” Lucy said. She crumpled up the paper from her biscuit and stuffed it into her pocket. “I think he does. Dads always know. Besides, Mark can’t stand that boy. Why else would he let it go like that?”

“You got a point.”

Lucy nudged his shoulder. “At least you don’t have to worry about Ellie, right?”

Joel hummed. “Right.”

“Has she told you yet?”

“No,” Joel chewed the inside of his cheek, thinking, before he grinned. “I keep messing with her about Jesse.”

“I’m sure she loves that.”

“She takes it well.”

"It's a tough thing to talk about, even now," Lucy said. "She'll tell you when she's ready."

There's a spot at the top of the hill just about a mile outside of Jackson where they always stop to take a break. It's got a perfect view of the valley below, every evergreen tree and stony hill. It was a mile downhill from the front gate, and two miles back uphill to Jackson. The trees gave enough shade that, even at the end of summer, the temperature came crashing down as they patrolled the downhill path.

As they rounded the bottom of the hill to begin the upward trek, Joel noticed, way off in the distance, a dark spot ambling through the clearing at the bottom of the next hill over. He nudged Lucy’s arm and pointed wordlessly.

Lucy grinned, stepping up to the fence that blocked the path from the steep dive down the hill. “How about a little friendly competition?”

Joel raised his eyebrow. “What have you got in mind?”

Lucy hefted her rifle up to her shoulder and peered down the scope. “One shot each. I win, you bring the good whiskey to Tommy’s this time.”

“Fair enough,” Joel said, raising his own rifle. “I win, you let me take over the radio station on Friday.”

“Oh, someone wants to be DJ for the night, huh?” she teased. “You have yourself a wager, Mr. Miller.”

The horde of runners and clickers down the hill doesn’t even notice as, one by one, they dropped like flies. Joel made every shot, clean as day. Lucy missed two, but the ones that hit were clean headshots. Nevertheless, Joel was the clear winner.

He grinned his smug grin, but he didn’t rub it in any more so than, “I’ll make sure it’s a good set.”

“You’re lucky I trust your music taste. I wouldn’t make that bet with just anybody.” Lucy affixed the rifle back over her shoulder by the strap. “Although, you could play something yourself, if you want. I think the mics would pick it up well enough.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Spoilsport. Like half the damn town hasn’t heard you and Tommy play after y’all get into the whiskey.”

“It’s a little different being put on the spot.”

“I can’t disagree with you there.”

It took an hour to get back to Jackson after they stopped for a break. The long, uphill walk left them both with rumbling stomachs, but one of the many benefits of Sunday patrol was a lunch cantina being set up at the watchposts. Once they passed the front gate of Jackson, they stopped at the watchpost to grab whatever was left of lunch since they were running late to switch shifts. Lucky Joel - the rest of his day was pretty much clear to go home, put his feet up, and relax. Lucy had hospital duty for the rest of the day.

Joel's house wasn't far past the hospital, so it was standard practice to walk Lucy down to the hospital when she had duty. He meandered along next to her, not quite brushing shoulders. “They still got you working down in the morgue?”

Lucy shook her head and took a bite of the sandwich from the cantina, humming when she discovered it was chicken. Not that it really mattered what was in the sandwich - she wasn't going to complain about anything that she didn't have to make herself. “I'm up in obstetrics, now. There’s a heart monitor and an ultrasound machine on the fritz, so I’m working on that. Doc’s getting antsy for me to fix them since Margo’s due soon.”

"Making any headway?"

God, that sandwich was so good. She peeled the wrapped off and stuff it in her pocket so she could finish. "I should have both finished by tonight. Hopefully, I'll be back down at the morgue or the power plant by tomorrow."

"I think I'd rather be down at the power plant."

Lucy shrugged. “I’d rather be anywhere than obstetrics. Last time I got caught there at the wrong time, I had to help.”

Joel did not envy her. "I can see why you're trying to finish up."

They stopped in front of the hospital. Lucy looked up at the building and sighed. "Which I'd better go do."

Joel took a couple of steps forward and turned back. “See you at Tommy’s tonight?”

“Wouldn’t miss it," she replied with a grin. "Oh, and I suggest you start figuring out your set, since you have the rest of the day off.”

* * *

** September 2034 – Jackson, Wyoming **

The power in Jackson is out. Again. Kind of comes with the territory of living in fucking Wyoming in the aftermath of the apocalypse.

Herein lies the problem. Mike is the mechanical engineer. He's the one who's supposed to fix this shit. Mark is the electrical engineer. If Mike can't fix it, Mark has to be the one to step in. The problems begin to arise when Mike and Mark are screaming at each other, and when neither will back down, and when neither one can agree as to exactly how to get the power back on.

Lucy's not that kind of engineer. It's not her job to bring the power back on. But she's the only engineer who's not screaming at another engineer, which means she's the engineer figuring out how to get the power back on.

Tommy's trying to help (and failing). He's not an engineer at all, but he's handy and smart and thus far more helpful than the two grown men currently screaming at each other. Tommy's found the blueprints for the dam, the simple act of which is far more helpful than anything Mike and Mark have done today. Lucy's scanning the blueprints with Tommy peering over her shoulder, looking for something, anything, to fix the problem and get the power back on.

The cavalry arrives in the form of Maria, who is decidedly pissed to find the scene transpiring in the power plant. If anyone can get Mike and Mark to shut up and get the job done, it’s Maria. Bless her.

It's the moment that Maria lays into them that Lucy sees the problem. There's an intake feed underneath a side panel in the basement that's never been checked - or, at least, there's nothing notated on the blueprints to say otherwise. The side panel runs underneath the floor of the basement down where infected might be lurking, so Lucy grabs Tommy and a shotgun and leaves Maria to chew Mike and Mark to pieces.

The basement is dank and dark and appears to have become home to a family of really fuckin' big rats. But as bad as the rats are, it’s nothing compared to what’s been trapped down in the part of the basement where no-one’s ever been. There’s also a nest of clickers neighboring the rats - big, nasty fuckers that look like they might be on their way to collectively forming into a bloater. Thankfully, two shotguns and a well-placed homemade pipe bomb make quick work of everything gross and scary.

It takes some time to clear the intake feed, but it gets done without either Lucy or Tommy getting injured. They’re drenched in sweat and vaguely sinister green water, but they’ve fixed it without getting bitten by anything.

By the time Lucy and Tommy get back to the workroom, Mike and Mark have been put in time-out, which means their ears are burning and they’re back to scouring the controls. Lucy loves it when Maria lays down the law like this – it’s unbelievably impressive just how effective Maria can be.

Speaking of Maria, she meets them in the workroom as soon as they’re back, and she returns dragging a tall, dark-haired man who looks suspiciously like Tommy if Tommy had black hair along with her. 

His name is Joel, Maria says. Joel Miller, Tommy’s brother. He’s is Tommy's senior by a few years. The thick hair at his temples is graying, and he’s wind-burned and weathered, but time has been otherwise kind to his appearance. He looks like he’s worked with his hands his entire life, and his voice sounds like Southern Comfort grew legs and learned to walk.

It’s a curious thing, this feeling that Lucy gets upon meeting Joel. She’s painfully aware that she's covered head to toe in grime from the intake feed and soaked to the bone, and there’s a good amount of gelatinous clicker blood splattering her clothes. Queue the immediate discomfort, the slight embarrassment, and the desire to finish her job and get home to a hot shower. It's been a long time since she's been concerned about the way she looks, and it’s immediately off-putting that this man accomplished that without doing much more than introducing himself.

Maria looks concerned, even a little apprehensive, and it's a look that Lucy knows that look well. Rightfully so, since both Lucy and Tommy are covered in grit, grime, and blood.

"When did you get here?" Tommy asks and moves to grab Joel in a hug before remembering he's covered in sludge. He settles for a fistbump. "Did you find...?"

Joel nods and looks around at Maria. "Yeah. We did."

"And Ellie?"

Maria cuts in. "Sleeping peacefully at our house."

Tommy sighs, relieved. "Good, good. You can tell me all about it later."

Joel nods and glances between Tommy and Lucy. "Y’all, uh, having a problem?"

"We had to clear out an intake pipe to get the power back on," Tommy replies. He claps Lucy on the shoulder, making her jump and drawing Joel's attention to her. "Lucy's a genius, I swear."

Joel looks like he's waiting for an introduction, which Maria picks up on. "Joel, this is Lucy. She's one of our engineers - and a friend. Lucy, Joel - Tommy's brother."

Lucy nods. "I'd shake your hand, but I'm..." She gestured downwards.

Joel smiles his tiny smile. "Introductions later, then. Anything I can do to help?"

Tommy shakes his head. "No, I think we've pretty well got it. Everything's back on in town, right?"

"The power came on while we were walking through," Maria replies, and tips her head towards Mike and Mark, "No thanks to these two."

"Doesn't matter who did it as long as it gets done," Lucy says gently.

Maria agrees. "The power's back on, and that's what matters. You two go wash up. Joel and I can take it from here."

Tommy sets off in his own direction with a promise to Joel to head back as soon as he's cleaned up. Maria stops Lucy before she can run off to her own home.

Maria leans in as close as she dares, which isn’t nearly as close as she normally would being that Lucy smells pretty bad from the intake feed goo. "Dinner tonight - our place."

Lucy nods. "Of course. I'll bring something."

"Oh, no, you don't," Maria replies, southern twang coming out full force. "The only thing you need to bring is yourself."

"When do I ever listen?" Lucy says with a wink. “I’ll bring beer or something.”

“Well, that’ll work, actually,” Maria pauses, chewing on her bottom lip, “since we're celebrating.”

“What are we celebrating?”

Maria glances over at Joel (who’s definitely not paying attention to anything they’re saying), but she’s wary nonetheless. “I’ll fill you in later after you get cleaned up.”

Lucy nods in his direction. “Got something to do with him?”

“Yeah.”

“Duly noted.”

Lucy has to pass Joel on the way out. He, up to that point, has been looking around the workroom for something to do. She waves as she passes, "Nice to meet you, Joel."

He waves back with a tired smile. "You too, Lucy."

That tiny, tired smile, almost hidden beneath the beard, makes Lucy's stomach flip-flop, and, _oh_ , that’s _bad_.


	2. they call me lonely, they say i'm blue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cheyenne's gonna be a bitch. Good thing Lucy's got Joel all to herself for a month.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bear with me, we'll get to the smut soon enough. Promise.

** August 2035 – Jackson, Wyoming **

Tommy dreaded the Cheyenne trip every single year. He didn't like anyone taking long-term trips, but, ya know, especially not his wife and his friend. Cheyenne was almost a hundred-fifty miles away – a month-long trip there and back. And Tommy sure as hell didn’t want them gone for a month, particularly with winter looming fast.

It was a dangerous run to make. US 191 wasn’t safe to travel on directly, so Lucy and Maria had to take the closely-hugging backroads branching off the interstate to get there. The dam they’d be traveling to find was located just outside of Cheyenne, but in order to get there, one had to go around the perimeter. The dam itself had always been fairly deserted, but the perimeter was a different story.

Cheyenne had been one of the first quarantine zones to fall. When it fell, the military bombed it right to hell to try to contain the infected, but it wasn’t enough. Now, nearly fifteen years after Cheyenne fell, the city was damn near overrun with runners, clickers, and - at this point - no telling what else. FEDRA was long gone, and if anyone living still remained, there was no telling what kind of people they’d be.

And that hospital potentially posed an even worse problem. It was right on the edge of the city, just inside the crumbling QZ walls. They didn't know what would be waiting for them there. Lucy had been there before, but that was nearly four years ago. And, if Tommy understood correctly, she hadn’t been in a state to understand the severity of the situation when she was there.

Despite the negatives, it was an unfortunately necessary trip. They needed parts, and they couldn’t afford to scout around to find a place closer when they already knew about the Cheyenne dam. As far as the hospital – there were other places, safer places, to find surplus parts and medicine, but Lucy wouldn’t be dissuaded. Nevertheless, necessity couldn’t excuse the danger it placed Maria and Lucy in.

In addition to the danger, planning for Cheyenne was a pain in the ass. Long trips like this one were a drain on resources. Tommy had to make sure that Maria and Lucy had enough supplies to make it there and back, or at least back to the final watchpost. Two of the horses would be gone for a month, which meant one of the long-range mounted patrols had to be switched out for a foot patrol route. The trip left Jackson without a leader and down one necessary engineer.

No one in Jackson was expendable, but in a practical sense, Maria and Lucy were nigh irreplaceable. Maria knew the ins and outs of Jackson and its people, and she had the respect and leadership skills to keep everyone together. Lucy, Tommy had come to find over the years, could fix anything. She was the only one who knew how to fix the hospital equipment. Hell, she’d figured out how to repair the power plant parts right along with Mark and Mike. It beat anything he ever saw, and Tommy didn't know how she did it, but the town couldn't afford to lose her any more than it could afford to lose Maria.

They'd decided to have the planning meeting that Friday morning. No one wanted to do it, but it was best to just get it done. Figuring out the departure date would be the most important decision to make. Tommy could handle the resources, Maria would figure out the plan for the month, and Lucy would have to do a check of all the hospital equipment. They’d be okay, though.

Tommy and Maria had been waiting in Maria's office for Lucy to show up for the past hour. It wasn't like Lucy to be late, but knowing her, she'd probably stopped in at the hospital before her shift to let whoever was down there know she might be late. It certainly wouldn't be unusual for her to get held up there. People would grab her in the hallways of the hospital to ask questions, and the doctors had a particularly hard time letting her go on about her day. Dr. Marlow had been especially bad about it lately since three different girls were pregnant – he’d kept her down in obstetrics working on all the machines for weeks.

Maybe it was time to talk to her about training an apprentice…

Finally, just as Maria was about to go searching for her, Lucy blew through the front door in a blur of maps and wild orange hair. Her face was pink, like she'd had to run to avoid someone. Or run to escape. Neither would be out of the ordinary.

"Sorry, sorry,” she grumbled. She dumped the maps on Maria’s desk and sat down in one of the available chairs. “I stopped by obstetrics. Doc wouldn't shut up so I could leave."

Maria started unfurling the maps Lucy had left on her desk. She looked up, taking in Lucy’s harried, flushed face. "I thought you were done in OB?"

Lucy shook her head. "Well, I fixed the heart monitor and the ultrasound Monday so I could get back down to the morgue, but the heart monitor won't _stay_ fixed. I think Doc just keeps breaking it and won't admit it."

Great, so not in a pleasant mood. Lucy didn’t get moody often, but when she did, it was hard to break her out of it.

"How long will you need?" Maria asked. She sat down in her office chair and scooted in close so they could begin. “Do you want me to take you off patrol this weekend?”

“No, no,” Lucy said, waving her hand. "Should be an easy fix this time. I'll have it done today."

There was a beat of silence – just an awkward pause. No one wanted to start the conversation, but in the end, Maria opened her mouth.

She smoothed her hands over the roadmap of Wyoming. “I guess we should talk about Cheyenne.”

Lucy nodded. “Let’s go ahead and get it over with.”

Tommy leaned back in his chair, hands laced together over his stomach. “I went down to the power plant yesterday. Mike and Mark think the dam will hold out for another year. If that’s the case, I think we should wait until the ice thaws in March.”

Tommy didn’t know how much of Mike and Mark’s assessment was influenced by their pride in repairing the parts, but he hoped it wasn’t much.

Lucy bit the inside of her cheek, chewing delicately. “I don't agree with them. The dam won’t hold out under the snow. I think if we leave at the end of August, we could be back before October.”

“There's less than a week until the end of August,” Maria said. “There’s not enough time to prepare for a month-long trip.”

“We already have what we need,” Lucy reasoned, scooting her chair in so she could hover over one of the maps. “Look, it’ll take two weeks to get to the dam. It would maybe take me a day to find everything we need. It’s maybe a day’s walk over to the hospital. Then, two weeks back. We’ve got plenty of resources, and we’d be back before the snow starts falling, easy.”

“What if something happens and your schedule is off, hm?” Tommy asked. “What if you two get caught in the middle of a snowstorm? We don’t have watchposts out that far.”

“And if something goes wrong at the dam before March, we won’t have power - maybe for months.”

Tommy exhaled. “We can live without power. Every last one of us did it for years. You and Maria are not expendable.”

Lucy turned. “Maria? You’re in charge.”

The look on Maria’s face told Lucy all she needed to know before Maria even opened her mouth. “We need to leave after the ice thaws to be sure we don’t get caught up in a storm.”

“Who’s leavin’?”

The room stilled as Joel walked through the door. His gaze shifted from Tommy and Maria’s grim, steadfast faces to Lucy’s frustrated glare. He stepped forward, dark eyebrows raised with concern.

Joel’s tongue peeked out to wet his lips before he spoke again. “Did I walk in at the wrong time?”

“No,” Lucy said, standing up from her chair. She started gathering up and folding the maps she’d brought along with her. She turned towards the Joel, who was still blocking the door. “We just got done talking.”

Maria stopped her before she could push past Joel to leave. “Lou, don’t go running off. We’re not done talking.”

“What’s there to talk about? I can’t make you go to Cheyenne,” Lucy shrugged.

Joel cocked his head. “What’s in Cheyenne?”

But Lucy continued on, facing Maria and Tommy with a look that bordered on pleading. “Look, we’re trying to repair parts we don’t know how to repair. Mark and Mike do the best they can, and I do too, but there’s gonna come a point when we can’t repair the parts anymore. If it’s gonna have to be March, then we’ll go in March, but I don’t think the dam will hold up through the winter. I can research how to fix it in the meantime, I suppose.”

Tommy sighed. “It’s not your responsibility to take all this on yourself.”

“Well, who else is gonna do it?”

Joel lifted his hands and stepped between Tommy and Lucy, sensing the degradation of this conversation looming. “Why don’t y’all take a step back and explain what’s going on?”

This wasn’t the first time Joel had to play mediator between the two of them. When Tommy tried to play big brother, even without realizing that’s what he was doing, they’d get into it. And Joel thought he was the stubborn one – Lucy could give them all a run for their money.

Maria stepped out from behind her desk and stood past Joel’s elbow. She was used to playing mediator, too, but that’s why she was in charge. “There’s an old, defunct dam in Cheyenne where we scavenge for parts. Lucy and I make the trip every year. Usually, we leave in September, but it’s been colder than normal and we’re seeing more infected on the path we have to take.”

Tommy continued on from there. “Lucy wants to move the trip up to the end of August, which gives us less than a week to prepare for a trip that, there and back, will take a month. Maria and I think it would be better to do it next March when the ice thaws.”

Joel turned to Lucy. “And you want to move the trip up so that we have spare parts for the dam in case something happens?”

Lucy nodded. “I can’t keep repairing the dam parts on top of fixing the hospital equipment on top of patrols. We need new parts, or we might be freezing this winter.”

“And you know the way to the dam?”

“Of course,” Lucy replied. “I came up from that way to find Jackson.”

Joel hummed. “You and I can go. We'll take a couple weeks to prepare. No reason for Maria to leave Jackson if you know the way.”

Tommy scoffed, indignant. “Have you been getting into the whiskey? You sure you’re my brother?”

“Lucy has a point,” Joel said, crossing his arms. He didn’t dare look over at Lucy for fear of losing his train of thought. “If we can get there and back, we won’t have to do without during the winter. I don’t know about y’all, but I’ve gone a little soft on account of these old electric stoves.”

Tommy turned to Maria, ever the dutiful husband. “Maria? It’s your call.”

Maria tipped her chin at Lucy. “Why don’t you tell Joel about the second stop before I make a decision?”

Lucy bit her bottom lip, pulling at a loose piece of chapped skin until she tasted blood. “I want to make a stop at the old hospital near the dam. We could really use anything that still works.”

“And?” Maria asked, lips pursed. “What’s in that hospital?”

Joel had never seen Lucy direct that kind of look of frustration at Maria, nor had he ever heard Maria take on a tone of voice anywhere close to curt with Lucy, not even once in the past almost-year that he’d been in Jackson. Lucy and Maria were always on the same page, flowing seamlessly together like their ideas came from the same brain. They definitely weren’t in sync at that moment.

Lucy pursed her lips in a near-mirror of the look on Maria’s face. “And the last time I was there, it was filled with runners and clickers.”

Joel was quiet for a minute. This trip was necessary, and it would happen whether he wanted it to or not. He suspected that if Maria and Tommy decided to wait until March, Lucy would likely abscond on her own to go get it done. If she did that, she likely wouldn’t come back in one piece, the idea of which made Joel’s stomach turn.

Finally, he said, “We’ll make it work.”

Maria ran her fingers through her hair, laughing in a short huff that wasn’t a laugh at all. She pointed a finger at Joel. “You damn sure better be back before the first of October, do you hear me? And if you see one goddamn snowflake, you turn right around.”

“We’ll get it done,” Lucy said. She shuffled the maps so that they fit more closely up under her arm. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back over to obstetrics before Doc hunts me down.”

Lucy walked out in a fluff of wild orange hair without another word, squeezing Joel’s bicep on the way past. Joel didn’t turn to watch her go; instead, he looked down at his boots.

Maria waited until the door clicked shut behind Lucy before she rounded on Joel. “What the hell are you thinking?”

“I’m making sure she comes back in one piece,” Joel snapped. “You know just as well as I do that she’ll go off and do it whether you want her to or not.”

“And you’re enabling her and all her stubborn ideas!”

“If it means having some peace of mind,” Joel remarked quietly, “then so be it.”

Without another word, he turned and made his own timely exit, leaving Tommy and Maria to stare at each other in the silence of the courthouse office.

* * *

** August 2035 – Jackson, Wyoming Radio Station **

The radio station lit up the steadily darkening August sky like a star against the setting sun. It was like home, quiet and serene, right there in the middle of downtown. Rain pattered against the windows, drumming a comforting staccato in the waning evening.

Lucy always went to the station right after she finished her shift at the hospital. She liked to take the hour before her set to relax and figure out what she wanted to play for the night. There wasn’t an abundance of choice, mostly old outlaw country and some ancient glam rock from the time of feathered hair and sequin jumpsuits, but no one in town complained. She had enough choice to make a different set at least three weeks in a row, and that was just fine.

But tonight, Lucy got to relax. Figuring out the set was Joel’s job, since he’d seen fit to cash in on his win from their wager.

Joel wasn’t there when Lucy got to the station, which gave her a minute to sit down and breathe in silence. With people constantly hounding her, she didn’t often get the opportunity to simply _exist_. If it wasn’t Mike or Mark down at the power plant, it was Dr. Marlow at the hospital, or Dr. Marlow’s patients, or Tommy with patrols. This must be how Maria felt all day, every day, with people coming in and out of her office.

So, yeah, as glad as she would be to see Joel, a little alone time was lovely.

Well, if she were being honest, she wouldn’t be relaxing when Joel arrived. Joel made her anxious - always had. It was a beast of a thing to have Tommy schedule them together for patrol shifts all the time or to see him at Tommy and Maria’s place for dinner, but it was another beast entirely to have him all to herself in her own space. Yeah, Joel came down to the radio station pretty frequently, but it never got easier to sit there in his presence no matter how often she did it. Sitting next to him made her heart feel like it was going to crawl out of her mouth.

Lucy’s anxiety was ramped up tonight, too. Now, she had to think about spending a month with just Joel, day in and day out. She had to think about holing up in the watchposts with just Joel, sitting around the campfire at night, constantly sharing the same space. And to make matters worse, he was probably going to want to plan for the trip tonight, too.

If Lucy could make it to Cheyenne and back in one piece, she swore, she’d open her mouth and say something to him if he didn’t open his mouth first.

As the sun slipped down further over the horizon, the back door of the radio station jostled open. Cool evening air swept through the station as Joel entered through the door and shut it gently behind him. He’d gotten caught out in the rain; his greying hair was damp and his thin t-shirt was stuck to his shoulders like a second skin.

Lucy groaned inwardly. Yeah, as if she needed to see him all wet. It was hard enough to form a coherent thought in his presence when they were alone, much less when she could see the outline of every muscle on his body through his shirt.

Joel shuffled in, scuffing his thick boots on the rug in front of the door to knock the mud off, and pulled out the chair next to Lucy. He set his backpack next to his feet, right between both of their chairs. Leaning back in his chair, he laced his hands together behind his head. “Ready to get started?”

“Yes, indeed,” Lucy said. She rolled her chair over to the controls and started flipping all the switches. “Hope you’ve got a good set planned.”

“I think you’ll like it,” Joel replied, the tiniest smirk on his face.

“I trust you implicitly,” Lucy said. She turned towards him, hand hovering over the microphone switch. “You wanna talk, or shall I?”

“You do the talking,” Joel said as he leaned over to rummage through his backpack. “I’m not much for it.”

From his backpack, Joel retrieved a stack of CD’s probably ten deep – more than enough to keep them covered for the next few hours. He handed her a CD from the stack and pointed to the numbered track that he wanted her to play. It’s good stuff – the kind of music she grew up listening to, day in and day out, even late into the night when her parents bitched at her to keep it down. She guessed it probably brought back memories for him, too.

“Good afternoon, Jackson,” Lucy said, flipping the microphone switch. She leaned in close to the microphone. “I’ve got a special set for you tonight, courtesy of our guest host. I don’t have to tell you who it is- it’s my understanding that everyone already knows. He says it’s going to be a good one.”

She caught the tiny smirk on his face out of the corner of her eye as she switched off the microphone and set the track to play.

Lucy shuffled through the stack and found that it was mostly grunge and some old country. “Where’d you find these?”

“Uh, there’s a music store on one of the longer routes,” Joel replied. “I grabbed a few things last time I went through there.”

“You’ll have to show me where it is,” Lucy said, grinning as she handed the stack back to him. “I really want to expand what I have here. I’ll have to borrow these sometime.”

“Ah, I figured I’d just leave them here,” he shrugged. He placed them on the control panel, nudging them into a neat stack. “You’ll get more use out of them than I will.”

Lucy smirked. “Didn’t grab a CD player from the store?”

“I seem to remember CD’s were on the way out when the Outbreak happened,” Joel said, though the grin on his face was something less than amused. “Couldn’t find one in the store, but I’m sure there’s one that still works out there somewhere.”

The beginning strains of the song began to play. _Superman’s Dead_. Our Lady Peace. Lucy had grown up listening to them. Now, it seemed ironic in a way she didn’t want to think about.

They fell into silence listening to the music. It wasn’t a comfortable silence – silence had never been easy when it was just the two of them. It was a _good_ silence, yeah, but uncomfortable, nonetheless. These silences were getting more frequent and heavier each time they happened, like there were words hanging in the air, just past the tip of the tongue, that neither one of them could catch hold of.

It went on like that through a cycle of probably ten songs, but finally, Joel broke.

“So, it’ll take us two weeks to get to Cheyenne?”

Lucy nodded. She’d been waiting for him to ask – goodness knows she wasn’t going to be the one to bring it up. She drew her legs up into her chair and crossed them underneath her. “Yeah, two weeks there and two weeks back. Shouldn’t take us more than three days in the city itself.”

Joel leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest. “What exactly are we lookin’ for?”

Lucy tried not to watch at the way the muscle bunched up in his chest as he crossed his arms, or at the tight stretch of his biceps, but she couldn’t say whether she succeeded or not. (Obviously not.) “There are a few parts for the power plant that we need in particular - some fittings and bearings that just can’t be repaired. Anything we can scavenge, honestly.”

Joel tracked her line of sight and tried to push away the flush of pride in his chest. “What about the hospital?”

“Again, anything. Especially medicine and parts,” Lucy said, busying herself by taking the top CD off of the stack. She chewed on her words carefully, as if trying to decide what to say next. “I can fix most of the hospital equipment. It’s just nice to have some backups.”

Joel sensed the hesitancy in her words. “You sure that’s it?”

Lucy paused, staring absently at the back of the CD in her hand. “I left something behind last time I was there. I want it back.”

“We’ll find it.”

Lucy’s chest tightened at his words. Not so much at the assurance they would find what she left in the hospital, but the tone of his voice. It was soft, but sure and steady, hardly more than a low rumble in his chest. There’s no way to know that what she’s looking for is still there until they get there, but those few words gave her hope.

Joel’s eyes were as soft as his voice when she finally looked up from the back of the CD case.

Boy, it’s going to be a long month.

They fell into another silence, this one even more uncomfortable than the last. The hush was punctuated only every now and then by short conversation about the song playing, or about the band, or how much they missed that band, or _I wonder if these guys are alive somewhere_. Joel had definitely surprised her with his choices, but at the same time, the hodgepodge of old country and downright gloomy grunge seemed like obvious choices. He wouldn’t sing, but he hummed along every now and then when he figured she was lost in her own thoughts.

Finally, the streetlights flooded the night with a yellow glare, and it was time to pack up and head home. It must have been close to nine or ten p.m., which was about as long as either of them could stay awake. 

Lucy flipped the switch on her microphone for the last time that night. “Let’s all thank our guest host for giving us this excellent set tonight. I know I certainly enjoyed it. Don’t forget, curfew is at 11PM. That includes us, so I guess we better head home.”

Lucy busied herself with shutting down the controls while Joel grabbed his backpack. She lived a few blocks down - not far from the station or Joel’s house. He’d walk her home, she knew, before he turned in for the night. She grabbed her backpack and followed him outside, locking the station door behind her.

* * *

** September 2034 – Jackson, Wyoming **

Lucy always brings something to Tommy and Maria’s for dinner. Doesn’t matter if it’s food, beer, wine – it’s only common courtesy. It’s what you’re supposed to do. Those old, small-town manners never left her, not even after twenty years of apocalyptical savagery and bare-knuckled survival. (Neither did the small-town nosiness, which she had been pleased to find on her arrival and assimilation into Jackson two years ago.)

Tonight is no different. Despite Maria’s request that she not trouble herself to bring anything, she’s brought along a bottle of wine and a jug of beer, both homemade (and in her humble option, both are pretty good). Tommy likes the beer; he can usually manage to find everything she needs to make it, so he just brings the ingredients to her. Maria likes the beer, too, but wine gives them a sense of real, pre-outbreak girls’ nights.

Lucy shows up at Maria and Tommy’s house right as the sun starts to go down and finds herself to be the last one to get to the party. Maria answers the door when she knocks and leads her past the dining room, right on into the kitchen.

Lucy peeks into the dining room as she walks past to catch a look at the table. Tommy’s on one side of the table, parked in his seat right next to Joel. Joel’s trying to look comfortable, but Lucy gets the impression that he feels a little out of place at a real dinner table. There’s a girl no older than, maybe, fourteen on the other side of the table who Lucy assumes is Ellie. Ellie stares down at her plate and the heaps of food on the table like she doesn’t know what to make of it. Tommy catches her peeking into the dining room and waves her in so he can take the jug of beer from her, hooting about how excited he is to try it. 

Maria takes the bottle of wine into the kitchen, and Lucy follows her. Since Maria’s already set the table, there’s nothing else for her to do but pop the cork on the bottle of wine and pour them both a drink. 

Maria leans against the counter, regarding her glass of wine as if she’s waiting for it to speak for her. Finally, she tells Lucy what she knows - what Ellie and Joel have collectively told her. They were searching for the Fireflies, and they found them. Too bad the Fireflies didn’t need them since that’s the whole reason they went all the way to Salt Lake City.

There are holes in the story that set off alarms in Lucy’s head. Something about the story doesn’t sound quite right. Maria doesn’t mention it, and maybe she doesn’t know, but Lucy knows a thing or two about the Fireflies. The Fireflies will take you for all you’re worth and keep right on taking, no matter who you are or whether they need you. But she can’t dispute the story Maria tells her, so she has to take it at face value. 

Once Maria finishes her debrief, she takes the first sip of her wine and says, “Ellie’s been quiet since she woke up. Mind helping me out with her?”

Lucy nods. “I can do that.”

Maria walks them back out into the dining room, each holding a glass of wine, and introduces her to Ellie. “Ellie, this is Lucy. She’s one of our engineers.”

Ellie smiles and greets her politely but doesn’t say more than that. She’s skinny, with deep circles ringing half-wild eyes. If Lucy knows Maria – and Lucy _definitely_ knows Maria - she’s going to force-feed this girl and make her take daily naps until that wild look in her eyes is gone.

Lucy takes the vacant spot next to her, directly across from Tommy, and makes a point to observe. There, Lucy notices a few things about Ellie.

The first thing Lucy notices is that Ellie’s visibly shaken up about something, though she hides it well. There’s something about the way Ellie looks down at her food - like she can’t really see it or maybe doesn’t believe it’s there. There’s something about the way Joel’s already-somber hazel eyes seem even darker, even sadder, whenever Tommy mentions the Fireflies that night.

The second thing Lucy notices is that Ellie keeps tugging her right sleeve down. Lucy tries not to make it obvious that she’s looking, but Ellie catches her a couple of times. Lucy can guess what’s going on, if they’re talking about the Fireflies in Salt Lake City. 

Lucy knows a thing or two about Fireflies and cures.

The somber mood lightens as the night goes on, thankfully, enough to make it genuinely pleasant. Maria’s food certainly serves as a good jumping-off point. She’s an excellent cook, and Lucy has never once found a single thing to complain about. The alcohol helps, too, especially once Tommy and Joel give up on refilling their glasses and just start passing the jug back and forth.

Lucy and Maria make a solid effort to cheer Ellie up, but it’s Lucy who finally figures out how to do it. 

Tommy urges Joel to follow him outside onto the porch after getting the assurance from Maria that the dishes can wait until the morning. Up until that moment, Joel had been fairly quiet, content to accept the jug of beer whenever Tommy passed it over to him. Joel follows without protest.

When Lucy’s sure the men are out of earshot, she nudges Ellie’s arm. “Let’s help Maria get cleaned up.”

Ellie nods and starts grabbing plates. They take the dishes into the kitchen where Maria directs them to dump everything in the sink.

“Tommy’s on dish duty in the morning,” Maria says, looking out the kitchen window at the front porch. Tommy’s taking a pretty substantial swig of beer from the jug, much to Joel’s amusement. “Hungover or not.”

“That beer’s not that strong,” Lucy laughs.

“Yeah, well, he’s pretty well gone through half of the jug on his own,” Maria replies, and although she sounds exasperated, there’s the lightest twinkle of amusement in her eyes. “If he’s sick in the morning, that’s his own damn fault.”

Maria heads out to the front porch, and Lucy pulls Ellie over to the side. She hands her a cup half-filled with wine.

“I’m sure you’ve had it before, being that you’re a sneaky little Boston kid, just don’t tell them I gave it to you,” Lucy teases. Ellie takes a sip, and it’s clear from the pinched look on her face that she doesn’t like it. Lucy laughs. “I’d slip you some beer instead to see if you like that better, but I don’t think you want to drink behind those two.”

Ellie shakes her head. “I’ll pass.”

Lucy wraps an arm around Ellie’s shoulders, more so to see if she would shrug her off or not. “Come on, kid. Want to play cards? I brought a deck.”

Ellie doesn’t pull away - in fact, she seems relieved by the human contact. “Okay.”

Lucy guides her out to the front porch. They sit down on the steps right at Maria’s feet, and Lucy pulls out the deck of cards to play. Tommy’s chattering away, half-drunk, while Maria and Joel both listen with bemused smiles on their faces.

It’s clear after listening in for a while that Joel hasn’t had as much to drink as he seems to want Tommy to believe. He’s no more talkative now than he was earlier in the day, and though Lucy can’t see much of his cheeks underneath his beard, what little she can see doesn’t appear to be flushed like Tommy’s. Lucy watches him out of the corner of her eye, and it looks like his lips are pressed mostly together whenever he goes to take a drink from the jug. Nope, definitely not drinking much.

She catches Joel drinking from the jug, and the way his lips press to the neck of the bottle makes her cheeks burn. She pushes the embarrassment back down. He’s an attractive guy - no reason to get weird about it. But there it is - the same self-conscious clenching feeling as that morning, right down in the pit of her stomach.

There’s no point in getting her hopes up. He’s older – probably not interested in anything like that anymore. There must be a ten-year difference between them, too. But when Joel glances over at her for just the tiniest, fleeting half-second of attention, it’s with the kind of mild interest that makes her treacherous heart skip a beat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finished a little early, so here's chapter two! It might take a little longer next time since it's about to be Hell Month, but rest assured, I've got this story all planned out and ready to go.


	3. no repair in sight, no god with such might

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The trip begins, and so do the problems.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look, ma, I made it three chapters before the smut showed up. It's a record!

** Day 1 - September 2035 - US 191 Outside of Jackson, Wyoming **

The morning of departure dawned bright and clear and cold as all damn get-out. Still, there was no sign of snow in sight, and for that, Lucy and Joel were grateful. They'd been treated to a beautiful sunrise bleeding from orange to yellow as they prepped to leave, breath fogging in the cold morning. The ground crunched with frost, the soft earth smelling dank and musty under the weight of the ice. But still, no snow, and for that is all they could hope.

In direct contract to the beautiful weather, Tommy and Maria had both been hounding them all morning to the point that it had put them all in a foul mood. After an hour of listening to Maria fuss at her, Lucy’d run off down to the power plant to make a final inventory of all the parts they would need to find while Joel got the horses ready. Joel did his best to humor Tommy, but his patience was steadily wearing thin.

Joel had always made a point to let Tommy fuss over him when he felt like it was necessary (although, and he made a point to mention it, shouldn’t it be the other way around if he’s the older brother?), but if Tommy said it once that morning, he said it a thousand times. Traveling directly on US 191 was too dangerous, so they’d have to take the branching utility roads to stay off of it ( _I know, Tommy._ ). Infected like the dark utility shafts up under the bridged portions of the highway ( _I’m aware._ ). Wild animals would be moving more with the temperature dropping but would stay off the pathways. ( _Dad taught me to hunt just the same as you, Tommy._ )

Finally, Joel had just simply had enough. Well-meaning as Joel knew Tommy and Maria were trying to be, both he and Lucy were _more-than-seasoned_ travelers. He let Tommy ramble on for a while, but after being told for the third time that the horses would have trouble near the bridges, Joel curtly reminded him that _he’s done this before_. Didn’t he do this same damn routine every day before patrol? He was an _adult_ for Christ’s sakes - same for Lucy. They knew the tricks, they knew the routine, and they knew how to stay safe.

“What is goin’ on here?” Joel said as he took Tommy aside. “You’ve never nit-picked me like this. Are y’all not telling me something?”

The question caught Tommy off-guard. Seemed to Joel like maybe he hadn’t realized he’d been crawling his ass enough to get on his nerves.

“We’re just nervous, alright?” Tommy replied and looked down at his boots. The morning light cast the shadows under his eyes into stark relief. “You two are not expendable, and the snow might be coming in early-”

It didn’t matter that Joel agreed with him (though he’d argue plenty of people could do his job) – he was nervous, too. He supposed that wasn’t quite Tommy’s point. “We can handle it, Tommy. She knows the way, and we’re both more than capable.”

“ _I know_ ,” Tommy snapped. He glanced over to where Maria was likely giving Lucy roundabouts the same lecture as Joel was getting, maybe worse. He didn’t hear any yelling, which was a miracle; Maria’s temper was something out of legend and Lucy’s was gnarly, too. “Just - just be careful, okay?”

Joel knew his brother better than anyone, though. _Something_ was going on that he didn’t want to admit. He pointed his finger in Tommy’s face. “Don’t you stand here and lie to me. What are you not telling me? What’s in Cheyenne that’s making y’all so nervous?”

Tommy chewed on his bottom lip. “It’s that goddamn hospital she’s so determined to go to. It’s bad enough that she wants to risk getting caught in the snow up here, but she does not need to go anywhere near that place.”

“Why?”

Tommy sighed. “Some people kept her in that hospital, but she won’t tell us what happened. Wouldn’t even tell Maria.”

Now, that part kind of surprised Joel. Lucy wasn’t the most forthcoming person when it came to, well, _anything_ , but he’d expect her to tell _Maria_ what happened.

Tommy kept on. “She says there shouldn’t be anyone left, but we never checked because we never expected her to want to go back there. If you can keep her away from that place, you do it.”

Joel knew well and good that he wouldn’t be able to keep Lucy from that hospital if she wanted to go there. All he’d be able to do is watch her back while she went in. Tommy very well knew that, but Joel made him a promise anyway. “I’ll do what I can.”

Tommy motioned him over to the front gate where Maria and Lucy stood, still scrapping like cats. They busied themselves with the horses and tried to make it seem like they weren’t eavesdropping. But could it really be called eavesdropping when the decibel level was so high?

“You remember what I said: one snowflake, and you turn back,” Maria said, giving Lucy that special _look_. It was that _older sister_ look – the same one she used to use when Lucy would act the fool when they were kids. “And if you’re gone a day past day thirty, I’m sending people out to look for you.”

"We'll be fine, ‘Ree," Lucy snapped. "Joel and I can handle it."

Maria shook her head, carding a hand through her already-mussed hair. “I _know_ that, but I worry.”

“Yes, _Mom_ , you do. Too much. That’s why your hair is gray.”

Maria rolled her eyes. “I count my blessings every day that I’ve lived long enough to have gray hair, which you ought to do yourself.” 

“My hair’s not gray yet,” Lucy teased, nudging Maria’s shoulder. She sighed when she received another eye roll. “Believe me, I do. Got plenty of scars to remind me what could have happened otherwise.”

“I know you’re going to ignore me, but _please_ reconsider going to Northside Medical.” Maria gripped her shoulders, always afraid that Lucy would run off on her (like she did every time she had to have a conversation she didn’t want to have). “Lucy, it’s not a place to go poking around, not after you showed up the way you did.

“‘Ree, we need more supplies-”

Maria cut her off right there. “That is _not_ why you’re going, and we both know it. I don’t know what you’re looking for, but what are the chances it’s even still there?”

“Slim,” Lucy answered honestly. She disentangled Maria’s hands from her shoulders and kept them trapped between her palms. “But it’s worth a try. To me, at least.”

Upon realizing that lambasting Lucy any further would get her nowhere, Maria relented. She’d rather their potentially last conversation, if all did not go well, not end in heartburn. Instead, she hugged her, pulling her in tight. "Don’t you dare go anywhere without Joel, and don’t let him wander off. You need to watch each other’s backs.”

“I will handcuff myself to him if it will make you feel better.”

Lucy immediately wished she knew how to stop making stupid comments, because that one sparked joy in Maria that she hadn’t seen in days. Maria never missed an opportunity to pick at her, and in these last few moments before they’d be separated for a month, she couldn’t let it go.

Lucy held up her hand. “Don’t start – you know what I mean.”

“Oh, I’m sure I do know what you mean.” Maria smirked. “Maybe I ought to handcuff you to him – could be a productive month for you."

"This could be our last conversation, ‘Ree. You want it to be this?"

“Better than me bitchin’ at you to be careful.”

After a round of hugs that felt far too close to goodbye hugs, Lucy and Joel set off on horseback.

It would take them most of the day to get to the first of the two watchposts on US 191. If the day’s journey went smoothly, they should be at the first watchpost by the time the sun goes down. And if they made _really_ good time, they could be at the second watchpost about two days after that in order to avoid camping outdoors and keep the exposure to the elements at a minimum.

All in all, the first day’s ride was quiet. The weather was cold and clear, and the trees provided enough shade to keep them completely out of the sun. Joel didn’t talk much, but then he never really did if they were out on horseback. It was hard to hear over the din of hooves, and it relieved him of the need to find something to talk about.

It wasn’t until they got about ten miles outside of Jackson that they came upon the first batch of infected.

Joel reigned in his horse - a huge chestnut-colored workhorse ironically named Chestnut - next to the fence overlooking in the valley. Down on the path below, a cluster of infected milled about, occasionally grunting and screeching loud enough to send an echoing ripple through the trees. There were ten by his count - eight runners and two clickers.

He motioned for Lucy to nudge her horse over to the fence and said, “We might ought to clear these out before they get any closer to home."

Lucy agreed. "Due diligence and all that. It’ll save the afternoon patrol the trouble."

Joel climbed down off of his horse and grabbed his rifle from the saddle. "Interested in another wager?" 

She joined him on the ground and located her own rifle. "What've you got in mind?

"We keep count of infected until we get back to Jackson," Joel said, hefting the gun up to his shoulder so he could peer down through the scope. Six infected, all runners, in a cluster by the bridge, two clickers flanked by two runners closer to the trees. 

"And the stakes?"

"I win, I get to use your horse whenever I want."

Unlike most of the other horses in Jackson that were community steeds, Lucy’s horse was hers and hers alone. Said horse was a gorgeous, dark gray Clydesdale, perfectly even-tempered (unlike poor Chestnut, who didn’t like anyone but Joel and only tolerated Joel because he fed him extra sugarcubes), and she was _famously_ attached to her. Lucy had come back from patrol one day with a colt in tow and refused to tell anyone where she’d gotten the horse (foul play was suspected, and she only encouraged the rumors). _Stealin’ horses used to be a hangin’ offense_ , she’d say to anyone who asked.

"Oh, those are some high stakes there," Lucy replied. She patted her horse on the neck, cooing quietly at the beast. "I'm quite attached to Linnea."

"Well, if you're _chicken_ …" Joel said, smiling smugly.

"I know what you're doing, and it's working," Lucy scoffed. She tossed Linnea’s reins over one of the fence posts in case the horses got spooked from the gunfire. "Alright, fine. But seeing as we're playing for some high stakes, if I win, you sing something after my set at the radio station for everyone to hear."

Joel paused, chewing on his bottom lip to keep himself from chuckling. He'd expected her to match his wager in kind, but he didn’t make bets he couldn’t win. He was prepared to do what he had to do, as he’d done far worse for far less. Frankly, singing for everyone to hear was a fair trade for use of Linnea (Chestnut eyed him with malice as if the horse could sense the betrayal).

"You sure you wanna make that bet?" Lucy continued.

"Sure as I can be."

Lucy hefted her rifle and peered down the scope. When she answered, it was with that faux-Southern Belle lilt she used when she teased him. "Well, then, you have yourself a wager, Mr. Miller."

He loved when she did that voice - when she twisted what remained of her formerly-thick Southern drawl to make herself sound like an old-timey Southern Belle. Kind of made him feel like he’d said something scandalous to make her laugh.

"You can take the first shot, Miss James." He smiled. "You're gonna need all the help you can get."

"Big talk," she snorted back at him.

Again, just as he'd done a couple weeks earlier, Joel just barely outmatched her. He took down both clickers and four runners with body shots while she took out the other four runners with clean headshots. Slow though she might be at pulling the trigger, Joel had to give her this: when she hit the mark, she always hit it clean. Still, he was the clear winner.

“Not sure why you keep making bets with me,” he teased when she nudged his shoulder in disgust. “Just gonna lose every time.”

She rolled her eyes, but her heart wasn’t in it. “Competition ain’t over yet.”

Joel unhitched Chestnut and climbed back onto the horse. "I'm sure there'll be plenty more where they came from."

Lucy nodded, unhitching Linnea from the fencepost. Both of the horses were edgy, but both had kept themselves together well, having grown used to the sounds of gunfire over the years. "You're right about that. The dam might be deserted, but Cheyenne is overrun. Plenty of cannon fodder."

Joel had never been to Cheyenne, so he wasn’t aware of what the city looked like. Being that he wasn’t known for broaching topics delicately, preferring to either ignore the issue or conversely just outright ask, he asked about the hospital. If he was going in with her, he wanted to know what they’d be facing.

"What about Northside?"

"No different. At least, not when I left." She slung her leg over the saddle and settled back in for the next leg of their ride. "Speaking of hospitals, what were you and Tommy talkin' about earlier? I know I heard him say hospital."

Joel considered playing it off, but he’d always been a bad liar. If anyone could figure him out, it’d be Lucy. Besides, the thought of lying to her made him feel uneasy. "Tommy wants me to talk you out of going to Northside Medical."

"Figures," Lucy replied, shaking her head. “I won't make you go with me, but I'm not leaving Cheyenne without going in there."

"If you're going in, I'm going in."

She was silent for a beat as they guided the horses to canter back on the path, but she finally said, "By the time we're done, you may wish you hadn't."

* * *

** Day 4 - September 2035 - US 191 Outside the Second Watchpost **

The temperature had dropped drastically in just the last four days since they’d left Jackson. Sleeping out in the forest the last two days had been miserable, so they were both glad they’d be staying at the second (and last) watchpost for the night.

The night at the first watchpost had been awkward, and the night after that, but they’d managed to stop tiptoeing around each other so much since last night. They couldn’t explain why they’d been stepping so lightly around each other, being that they’d been on overnight patrols together before, but this felt _different_.

It wasn’t until they’d thrown supper together that night from what rations they could spare for a real meal that Lucy finally put her finger on why this trip felt so different. Four days in, and it had started to feel like they were playing house.

If all went well, they’d be the only people each of them would see for a whole month. They’d be sleeping within arm’s reach of each other, making dinner, and awkwardly changing clothes out of sight of one another in close quarters for a whole month. Bathing near each other. (Hell, she’d heard Joel showering in the second watchposts’s makeshift stall shower after dinner and thought about that _way too long_ that night.)

All awkwardness aside, they nevertheless had food and shelter, happy horses, and they’d had no trouble thus far. Now, if the snow would hold out, they’d be okay. If not…

Well, Lucy didn’t want to have to face Maria.

* * *

** Day 10 - September 2035 - US 191 **

The morning of day ten dawned over their campsite bright and clear, but painfully, painfully cold. The sun was bright, but it offered little additional warmth considering the shade of the thicketed forest was almost opaque. Thankfully, the temperature hadn’t dropped any further in the last few days, and it was looking more like the snow would stay at bay. They were camped thirty miles outside of Cheyenne and would be just outside of the city perimeter by the end of the day.

Ordinarily, that morning would have been the same as any of the past mornings. Bright, cold, and clear; quiet; no infected or wild animals wandering through; with a fire that was just barely still stoked by the time the sun peeked over the horizon. By all accounts, it should have been nothing special just like all the past mornings.

That wasn’t quite the case the morning of day ten. 

You see, dream logic is kind of funny.

Joel knows he's dreaming - he's gotta be. He had this particular dream before, just once. It’s a slushy dream, dim and hazy, like the shot of whiskey you take after you should have already called it quits for the night. It’s a great dream, a _fantastic_ dream even, but decidedly not a dream he should have been having that morning, considering the star of the show had fallen asleep at her post six feet away from his makeshift tent.

Lucy is the centerpiece of his dream, of course. In fact, she’s the only part of his dream he can see clearly. Everything else in this vicious fever dream looks like the aftermath of a heatwave, like steam rolling off a lake in summer.

This is how he knows he's dreaming: Lucy’s hair is down. He's seen her wear her hair down before maybe once or twice, and only on special occasions. It's long and messy, the ends curling in just shy of her waist, laden down by thick corkscrew curls. By Lucy’s own complaint, there's too much of it and it's too wild to manage, so she ties it up out of the way. But in Joel’s dream, her hair is down, the wild orange curls draping down her back and falling in her face. 

Further proof: he knows he’s dreaming because she’s wearing his shirt. It’s just a thin, green t-shirt, so paltry and careworn that he can see the outline of every dip and curve right through it. He doesn't necessarily recognize it or know how she got it, but he inexplicably _knows_ it’s his. Wherever she got it, however she got it, she looks _right_.

The summation of his dream is this: it's Lucy with her hair down, wearing his shirt and straddling his naked lap. 

That's what he likes, being ridden like that. If he had to say he has a preference, that’s be it. Life is rough and he’s rarely ever able to relax; having someone else take the reins is a fine way to remedy that. Being ridden is unbearably soft and intimate and all of the things he’s never really gotten to be.

Therefore, it makes perfect sense she'd be straddling his lap in his dream, legs wrapped around his waist, while she sinks down on him and he thrusts up to match her. Her hands are pressed to his chest, and her mouth on his is lush and sweet. He strokes his hands up and down her back, relishing in the softness, and the closeness, and the hazy, dripping heat. She's whispering something in his ear that he can’t hear, but he _knows_ what she's saying. It’s rough and a little filthy - soft promises and easy demands. 

That’s what he likes. It’s what he wants. Because it's dream logic, right? 

And, right now, that's all it is.

At the denouement of his dream, Joel woke up. He jolted up into a sitting position from dead sleep by the sheer force of his body screaming at him to _wake up_ _wake up wake up_. Every inch of him was flushed - almost sore - from the involuntary adrenaline spike worming its way through his blood. He leaned forward, rubbing the thin crust of sleep from his eyes, feeling very much like he'd been punched in the chest. 

He massaged his temples and let out a shuddering breath. He’d only had that dream once before, but man, this time it was _vivid_. The tips of his fingers tingled like he could really feel the soft slip of her skin against his. His heart pounded like he’d actually been in the middle of…

Yeah, no, leave that train of thought back at the station.

There'd be no looking Lucy in the eye today. No, sir.

He'd be thinking about his hands on her back.

Nails scratching his scalp.

The soft brush of the backs of her thighs to the tops of his.

 _God help him_.

Joel peeked out from under his tent and found Lucy asleep at her post. Exhaustion must have gotten the better of her while she was on watch. Couldn’t blame her; after ten days of wandering through the wilderness, even Joel had been dead asleep. He supposed it was time to wake her up so they could get going but considering his body hadn't caught up with his brain yet, he decided that an extra hour of sleep wouldn't hurt anyone. Rolling over on his side, he fell back into a tenuous, though blissfully boring, sleep.

Lucy finally woke up, achieving a dubious consciousness that barely qualified as _awake_. It was fucking _cold_ , seeing as the fire had died sometime during the night (whoops). The blanket had kept her insulated while the fire had died down to bare embers. Her back ached from where she’d folded in on herself in her sleep, and there’d be no stretching the crick out of her neck anytime soon. Upon realizing that the sun was peeking over the horizon, she forced herself to stand, ducked into Joel’s makeshift tent, and shook him awake.

Joel kept his back to her as they packed up. Nope, couldn’t meet her eye today. He kept the talking to a minimum, hoping that if his silence irritated her, she’d just chalk it up to a case of the morning grumpies.

Clearly, she noticed.

Lucy appeared at his shoulder after she’d gotten Linnea ready to leave, touching his elbow gently to get his attention. He jumped when she touched the back of his arm.

She looked up at him like he’d sprouted horns. "You alright this morning?"

Nope, not looking at her. Heat creeped up his neck, and he hoped it wouldn’t crawl any higher. "Uh, yeah, just fine."

She raised an eyebrow at him. “Just checking. You ready to go?”

“Yep, all set.” Yeah, that sounded _so_ natural. He could have kicked himself. "Uh, you mind if I take the lead for today?"

Best to keep her out of his _direct_ line of sight, if only until he could confidently talk to her without fearing his face would turn red.

Lucy shrugged. "Be my guest. I wouldn’t mind just riding along for the day."

Joel flinched when she said _ride_ and prayed to anyone listening that she didn't catch it. "Sounds good. Guess we'd better get going."

"You sure you're okay?"

Absolutely not.

He nodded. "Just fine, Lou."

She patted the back of his arm, and it took everything in him not to flinch away. "Well, if you're sure."

* * *

** November 2034 - Austin, Texas **

Joel realizes that Tommy’s idea to take the trip to Austin is his brother’s best idea at repairing their relationship. Not that it had been for lack of trying, or even a lack of success; in fact, things had gotten much better between the two of them in the two months since Joel and Ellie turned back up in Jackson. It’s just that Tommy’s always been more inclined to forgive and forget, where Joel tends to let his grudges fester. 

And Joel was that way too before the Outbreak, more good-natured and inclined towards forgiveness - not so much now. It takes more work for Joel to do the forgiving, and the forgetting has always been out of the question. Tommy, though, has always had a gentler spirit. Maybe it’s because Joel had to grow up quick whereas Tommy got to ramble and do as he pleased for much of their childhood, but Joel’s always had more trouble letting go.

Joel’s working on it, though - he swore he would. Jackson is a good place, and he’s let himself be stony and surly for too long. He wants to make Jackson work (for himself and Ellie), and the first step to making it work is to forgive himself and fix his oldest relationship - his relationship with his own brother.

Hence, the trip to Austin. As nervous as it makes him, nevertheless, the trip is not a bad idea.

Joel’s had plenty of opportunity over the years to go back to Austin, he just never thought he’d actually do it. It’s not a matter of _never had time_ , it’s a matter of _refused to go_. He’s always been of the opinion it’s best to leave things where they lie, and he won’t deny the idea of going back to Austin floods him with a wash of apprehension. Tommy’s promised to stay away from Austin itself - just to Joel’s old house and back to Jackson, with maybe a stop at their parents’ old house to see what’s left of it.

The trip there is actually fun. They camp out in the forest, under the stars, like they used to do when they were kids. They’d brought along a couple of fishing poles just in case, and the day they spend fishing on the shore of a lake outside what’s left of Abilene, swigging from the jug of homemade beer Lucy sent along, is probably the best day either of them have had in years. 

The problem begins at Joel’s old house.

When they arrive, the house is in disrepair, but not in shambles. It’s almost completely empty, though, save for a few personal effects that none of the looters wanted. Tommy’s been there once before, so he’s prepared for what it looks like. Joel is… not. He built that house himself with his own two hands – all that work left for the enjoyment of looters.

Of all the things Joel expected to find in the house, he didn’t expect to find his old guitar. He can’t believe it’s still there. This one single discovery has made the trip down worth it.

Joel can’t make himself go in Sarah’s room, though. Tommy has to do that for him.

It’s when Joel tells Tommy about Salt Lake City that he damn near ruins what’s left of the trip. Tommy wouldn’t tell him what he thought, but Joel knows his brother better than anyone. He’d had the same look on his face as when he joined the Fireflies - when he’d run away from Joel’s chosen method of survival the first few years after the Outbreak and left Joel to his own devices. 

It was a look of careful disappointment and the unwillingness to acknowledge it.

Ignoring the problem had always been Tommy’s favorite coping mechanism when times are tough. Tommy has some kind of switch in his head that lets him just _turn off_. As irritating as it could be, Joel has always envied him for it. Joel’s not similarly inclined, hence the reason it became his responsibility to keep them alive for the first few years after the Outbreak. 

He’s learned not to mention it, though; some fights just aren’t worth it.

Tommy’s favorite way of ignoring his problems is to just _talk_. Doesn’t matter what - anything and everything not pertaining to the problem at hand will do. Said problem is that Joel had told him less than six hours ago he’d slaughtered half a hospital to get Ellie off of an operating table, potentially bankrupting the world of a cure for the infection. And now here they are, not even a mile outside of Austin, and Tommy is running his mouth about anything and everything that isn’t _that specific thing_.

Joel humors his chatter. He learned a long time ago it’s better to just let Tommy run his mouth. In fact, he’s grateful for it right now. It’s dragging his brutalized mind out of the hole he’s dug for it.

“You know, you ought to let me set you up with someone,” Tommy says amiably. His horse is trotting along right beside Joel’s, bright and happy, much like its owner. “Might be good for ya.”

Eh, well, maybe Joel’s not so grateful for the topic at hand.

“I’ll pass,” Joel replies. 

He’s not really the dating type - hasn’t been since his first wife walked out on him and left him with a newborn Sarah. Sure, he’d tried a couple of times before the Outbreak (mostly at his mother’s behest and because Tommy kept trying to set him up), but he was a young dad trying to take care of a tiny human who couldn’t even talk or feed herself. He didn’t have much free time back then, if any. Besides, most women in their early twenties were looking to start their own family, not take care of another woman’s kid.

And Tess’s death still stings, though it’s been close to two years now. Not that he could count Tess - not really. Whatever they’d had between them had been overshadowed by the fact that she wasn’t willing to make anything out of it.

"Dating's not really my thing."

“Aw, come on,” Tommy says. “Plenty of nice ladies our age back in Jackson. Maria says you’re already gettin’ the eye.”

“Oh, joy.”

Tommy definitely catches Joel’s tone, but Tommy does what he’s always done best: ignores his older brother.

“Joanna’s real nice. I think you’d like her,” he chatters, completely ignoring Joel’s _please-stop-talking_ tone (one of his most refined skills, even after all these years). “She’s kind of your type, I guess. Blonde, real sweet.”

“I don’t _have_ a type.” Joel pauses. “And even if I did, blonde and sweet ain’t it.”

“Rosanna, then? She’s nice.”

“Ain’t she the one who might’ve stabbed her ex-husband?”

Tommy looks away, sheepish. “That was never proven.”

“No.”

Tommy’s quiet for a few seconds, and for those few seconds, Joel holds the vain hope that he’s given up on this particular topic. Unfortunately, not so.

Tommy looks at him with mirth in his eyes and mischief in his tone. “...Lucy?”

Oh, here we go. Tommy’s been at this for a month already.

“Tommy, can we not-”

“Nuh-uh, don’t start. I saw you lookin’ before we left,” Tommy says, cutting him off with a laugh. “You can’t tell me _she’s_ not your type. Curly hair and mean as cat shit? That’s all you, big brother.”

Tommy’s taken a liking to Lucy, that much Joel knows. He vaguely recalls that Lucy and Maria grew up together, though he’s not sure what the story is there. It may have been something half-remembered, or a comment during dinner one night. All he knows is that those two women were two brain cells plucked out of the same noggin. It’s no wonder Tommy treats her the way he does - he always wanted a sister (or so he claims, though he only ever mentioned it when Joel whooped his ass at football). 

"I'm gonna tell her you said that," Joel chuckles, though the threat is half-hearted.

"Go right ahead. I tell her that once a week," Tommy says, and Joel can hear the affection in his voice. The rapport between them makes Joel a little jealous (he doesn’t know where it’s coming from and he’s not willing to acknowledge it). "I'm just messin' around. She's sweet when she wants to be, and she's got a good heart. She's real good with Ellie, too."

Joel's noticed. He's noticed a lot of things, in fact. Like how her nose scrunches up when she laughs and how she chews on her bottom lip when she's thinking. Not that he's looking at her lips or anything (but they _are_ nice, pink and bowed and downright _plush_ ). “That she is.”

“You oughta give it a shot.” Tommy's just talking out of the side of his mouth now, trying to get Joel to agree to _something_. "I think y'all'd do well together. Might do you some good to settle down."

"I don't know about all that, Tommy."

It's… well, it's certainly not the _worst_ idea to come out of Tommy's mouth. Joel can admit it's a tempting suggestion. It'd be nice to come home to someone who's happy to see him instead of just an empty house.

“If it helps, she was lookin’, too.”

Joel doesn’t respond.

Tommy smiles because he knows he’s got him. “You just let me know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If it seems rushed, bear with me. You'll see why.
> 
> I take the bar in three weeks. Y'all send some good vibes, please. There probably won't be a new chapter between now and then, but I'll have another chapter out pretty much immediately afterwards.


	4. as the skies turn gloomy, night winds whisper to me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's daydreams, and dams, and flashbacks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oooo, look, spicy stuff!

** Day 13 - September 2035 - Cheyenne, Wyoming **

The morning of Day 13 dawned bright and clear, much like every morning before it. Despite the steady drop in temperature as the days dragged on, the weather itself remained pleasant. If the snow would just hold out until they could get back to Jackson, they could call this trip a success. Still, the sooner they could leave Cheyenne and get back home, the better.

They'd set off that morning with a plan to spend the better part of the day gathering supplies and parts from the dam. If they could find what they needed, they would call it a day, head back to camp, and set out for the hospital tomorrow.

The dam was just outside of Cheyenne, right on the edge of a winding river. It had been spared the devastating damage and decay that plagued Cheyenne, but it no longer functioned as a dam. With no one around to maintain it, the actual structure of the dam had begun to crumble and leak, and the building itself was damp and smelled viciously of mildew.

Thankfully, it wouldn’t take them long to find everything they needed on Lucy’s list, maybe half a day at most. The parts they could scrounge and clean or replicate remained one of the best chances they had to keep power running at the power plant in Jackson. Any parts found they found would need to be cleaned and treated to ensure proper working order, considering the dam hadn't functioned properly in years.

In fact, the whole city of Cheyenne had been nearly deserted for the better part of fifteen years, that much was obvious. Cheyenne had been one of the first quarantine zones to fall, despite the citizens' best efforts. With no one around to take care of the city and maintain the upkeep, it had fallen to irreparable disrepair.

Persistent swarms of infected had plagued the city in the years after the Outbreak, successfully infecting more and more people despite FEDRA’s best efforts to keep the infection down. The place had been completely overrun hardly a couple of years after its establishment, but civilization reluctantly malingered until the bombings started and forced everyone out. In the end, the worst parts of the city had been systematically bombed, and the rest was deserted soon after save for a few factions of people too stubborn to give up their homes.

In the years since the bombings, the huge stone wall surrounding the city had begun to crumble and crack. In some places, large chunks of the wall were completely missing, the jagged empty spaces overrun by hanging vines and creepy-crawly little creatures. The buildings inside the city fared little better, and the few places that hadn't been reduced to rubble by the government were in a state of dangerous neglect.

As Joel and Lucy skimmed the perimeter of the city, glancing up every so often at the huge crumbling wall, they kept watch for any stragglers or infected who might be wandering through. There was no way to tell if anyone they found would be friendly (and it was likely that the answer would be no). In the hours since they'd arrived at the perimeter of the city, they'd yet to see any signs of life (or not-life) other than the few animals that scooted past, which they took as a good sign. Parts of the perimeter wall had long since crumbled; it would be a simple matter to hide in the empty spaces.

Lucy knew she needed to stay vigilant, but at thirteen days into the trip, she was exhausted and had been running mostly on autopilot. This last stretch of road before the dam was blisteringly boring, nothing but trees and dirt and grass. They were less than a mile outside of the dam now, and as far as she could tell, nothing was amiss. Because of that, she’d allowed herself to tentatively zone out and rest her mind for whatever might be on the inside of the dam.

Although, her daydreaming mind didn't want to let her rest either. It turned to Joel, as it often did - especially these past couple of weeks out in the wilderness.

Alone.

With just each other.

Over the past two weeks, it had become Joel’s responsibility to clean up for the night, and Lucy’s responsibility to get them going every morning. It was a dance - doing the chores without being asked, falling into a routine without mentioning any responsibility. They swapped responsibility for the food each night and each morning, and both would maintain that the other one did the better job of it. If they found clean water, one would keep watch while the other refilled the canteens and scrubbed down, both pointedly ignoring the fact that they could hear the other bathe.

It was… almost too easy. Too easy to do this together. Too easy to forget that they don’t do this in Jackson - wake each other up, make each other breakfast and dinner, keep each other safe.

Whatever was going on, Joel was always less than six feet away. Always right there, bundled up in his layers and layers of clothes, riding his horse, doing whatever he was doing at that moment. Checking to make sure the horses were okay. Searching for the nearest source of clean water. Trying to turn the rations into a passable dinner. Trying to set up the tent before it got too dark out. Always right there.

Six feet away.

And not an inch closer.

Whatever the other felt, however they chose to approach this, neither of them could deny that the foundation of that dreaded _something more_ was already there. They had the barebones structure of the _something more_. They just had to fill in the gaps, brick by frustrating brick. But what were the gaps?

Touch? Affection? Lucy did that all the time without even thinking about it. She touched his elbow to get his attention, squeezed his shoulder before she went to sleep at night, prodded his back to signal him when they needed to keep quiet while scouting. He wasn't quite so forward when it came to touch, but he didn't seem to mind that she was.

Intimacy? Didn't get much more intimate than sleeping in the same tent, short of sleeping in the same sleeping bag. With the temperature dropping steadily more and more every day, they’d consolidated their tents into one makeshift tarp that they angled towards the fire to keep them warm. Functionality was the excuse; an extra person in the tent meant an extra layer of warmth, not that it was much of an excuse when it was too cold to really matter _unless the extra person was close_. Infuriating though it may have been, they kept a respectable distance away from one another, with one person keeping watch from one side of the tent while the other slept (or tried to).

They had all the bricks. The whole goddamn house, really.

Lucy knew she should just open her mouth and tell him how she felt. But what if Tommy was wrong, or she'd misinterpreted things, or Joel just didn't want to bother with that frustrating _something more_? What if she got a _no_? And then had to spend another two weeks with just him, drowning in frustration and embarrassment? She didn't think she'd get a _no_ if she decided to say something, but it was the fear that kept her stubbornly quiet.

In any case, there were better places to let her mind wander than the this.

The emotional drain was frustrating, but there was one little detail that made it _so much worse_. Joel looked damn good, like, _all the time_. Didn't matter if they hadn't found clean water for days, didn't matter if he'd started sweating under the hundred layers of clothes, didn't matter if they'd been on horseback all day or crawled through a dirty basement. Joel just always looked _good_.

This one specific issue had been a constant thorn under Lucy's thumb for two weeks. There's an old saying about an itch that needs scratching; considering Joel had been six feet away from Lucy constantly for two straight weeks, she'd had that itch _the entire time_. Joel’s constant presence meant that Lucy was constantly reminded that he’s _right there_ , and it’s been _a long fucking time_ , and there was no kind of relief _at all_.

And now she couldn't just take care of it herself because, again, Joel was always _six feet away_. Despite having learned to keep quiet and be quick about it, sometimes it’s still not all that quiet. It wouldn’t do for him to hear her.

So, as Lucy rode on horseback, letting her mind wander on this viciously boring ride, it wandered right on over to what exactly she'd have to do to scratch that fuckin' itch before she lost her damn mind. She'd considered the idea of just... doing it anyway. Discreetly, of course. Quickly, quietly. Just pile on a couple of extra blankets to muffle any errant noises and disguise suspicious movement, turn the opposite direction to make it look like she was asleep, and make it quick. He'd be none the wiser.

But...

Being six feet away...

Joel could easily catch her anyway.

Which, being that it was Lucy's daydream and she could do whatever she wanted therein, it might not be such a bad idea for Joel to catch her. Oh, now _there_ was an _idea_. Wouldn't that be nice? He could catch her right in the middle of it, maybe offer to finish the job himself? Or watch? One, then the other?

The possibilities were endless.

Lucy smiled to herself. There's no emotional frustration in her daydreams today, no sir. Nothing to make her feel that age-old fear of _what happens if he says no_. And there's no physical frustration either because daydream Joel would take care of that just fine. Yes, indeed, daydream Joel could definitely take care of that and take care of it _well_.

Ah, the _possibilities_.

He could catch her taking care of herself and just... slide on in the sleeping bag with her. Easy enough. There was more than enough room for the two of them, although it would cut the wiggle room down to nothing. They'd have to pile on a couple of extra blankets, but Lucy figured Joel would keep her plenty warm all on his own. She'd certainly be warm enough with his fingers knuckle-deep in her cunt, thumb at her clit, sliding in and out while he -

"Lou!"

Lucy shook her head, trying to rouse herself back into some form of attentiveness. "What?"

“Are you listenin’?”

Lucy had heard absolutely nothing but the sound of her inner thoughts for the past half-hour.

"Uh..."

“Guess that’s a no,” Joel chuckled, biting his lip when Lucy glared back over her shoulder at him. He bit back a grin; he’d been trying to get her attention for the last five minutes. “I asked how you found this place.”

“Oh, sorry,” Lucy said. She squirmed in the saddle in a vain attempt to get comfortable, mildly annoyed because she would have liked to finish that daydream. “Uh, I needed some shelter when I was coming up through here to find Jackson. This was the only place without infected or people.”

Not entirely true, but true enough for now.

“Lucky find,” Joel commented.

Oh, Joel had _no idea_. Lucy would like to keep it that way, but she had a feeling she'd have to tell him what happened to her in Cheyenne sooner or later.

“You’re telling me,” Lucy mumbled, far too quietly for Joel to hear.

They’d come up on the dam finally, and it was time to get to work. Like the rest of Cheyenne, the stonework building had started to crack and crumble. Some spots where nothing more than a gaping hole, an open wound in what would have been a beautiful building twenty years ago.

While the dam appeared to still be deserted from the outside, there was no guarantee the inside would be. The only noise from the outside was the sound of rushing water spilling out from the cracks in the dam and the discontent snorting of the horses. 

The horses stomped and snorted, spooked by the empty silence. They tied up the horses outside and grabbed a few empty packs meant for collecting parts and anything else they could find. They loaded up, strapped to the teeth with loaded guns. Joel kept a machete tied to his belt while Lucy made use a particularly nasty-looking crowbar they’d found a few days ago in an empty shed. Whatever was in that dam, if there was anything, they’d be prepared to take care of it.

Joel motioned for her to follow him, then pressed a finger to his lips. _Keep quiet until we know what’s in there_. Lucy nodded in return and stepped in line behind him. She kept watch on the area behind them for anyone who may have been watching as they rode up and decided to take the opportunity to surprise them.

The front door hinges were rusted shut, and the handle nearly wouldn’t turn. Joel shoved it with his full weight, finally forcing the rusty hinges to turn. The door creaked open, loud and screechy in the dead air. He cursed under his breath and froze, checking for any sign of movement. The air remained still and stale, so he slipped in through the door, Lucy on his heels.

The smell of mildew and damp hit them hard. The overwhelming scent of vegetation and rot was nearly enough to make them back out of the building. Everything metal was rusted over and covered in water that dripped from all the leaks in the roof. Worst of all, if the cold outside wasn't bad enough, this place was colder than a tomb.

Before they began the search for parts, they cleared the room to be sure that nothing was going to come popping out at them. The first ten side rooms were little more than supply closets and offices, hardly more than glorified cubicles. For the most part, there was nothing in them; most were completely empty save for some odds and ends that Lucy scooped into her pack on the way past.

Once they were sure the floor was cleared, they started the search. Lucy had made a list of everything they needed to take from the dam before they’d left (while she got bitched at by Maria). Mostly, it was just odds and ends like smaller gears, any plans they could find for structures or parts, and tools. But, in particular, they needed a specific type of valve for the intake feed to control the flow of water, which they’d have to get from the basement.

Lucy gingerly placed her pack on one of the rusty, wet tables to take inventory of what she'd found so far, then motioned Joel over to do the same. They'd found odds and ends, helpful things and tools, but the valve was still missing. If she was correct, the intake feed likely ran below the floor they were on, so they'd have to check downstairs.

"I was hoping one of these valves would be up here," Lucy said lowly. She swept everything back into her pack, along with the paper list she'd been checking off. "I think we've gotta check the basement."

Joel's answering voice was hardly more than a rumble in his chest, but it somehow reverberated through the room anyway. "Where's the basement?"

"Should be down the stairwell at the back."

Again, Joel took the lead, checking past the stairwell door into the hallway that led down to the basement. The door hinges here were rusted through, and just like the front door, they squealed when Joel shoved the door open. The stairwell was deserted, pitch black and reeking of rot. They turned on their flashlights and crept down the stairs.

“I’ve never been in the basement,” Lucy whispered, “so I don’t know what’s down here.”

Lucy couldn't see him because her flashlight was angled directly down to the steep drop of the stairwell, but her hand rested against his back to keep from getting separated. She felt, rather than saw, him tense up.

He whispered back. “But you’re sure this valve is in the basement?”

“Yeah, that’s where the intake is.”

They reached the basement door. The smell of rot and mildew was stronger than ever down here.

“We’ll find it.” Joel’s hand hovered just above the door handle. “Just watch my back.”

Lucy's hand dropped down to the back of his elbow, so light that he probably couldn't feel it through the layers of clothes. “Always.”

The basement door was rusted shut just like every other door in the building. It had been blocked by debris on the other side, which meant they both had to put their weight against it to get it open. They shoved it once, twice, and the third time, it opened.

This time, the door flew open and slammed against the wall, the hinges screeching like demons.

In the far corner of the basement where the intake feed led out, a shadow moved just out of the direct line of Joel’s flashlight. Two clickers, disturbed by the screeching door, rushed towards them, flailing wildly to compensate for a world that, to them, was perpetually dark.

Joel swung around and managed to put bullets in two of them while Lucy turned to check the opposite way.

From the opposite direction - the direction in which Lucy had turned - came a group of runners, snarling and screaming, bits of gelatinous bloody goo flying off of them and dripping onto the floor. She emptied a clip into the group until the trigger clicked, taking out all four of them before they could reach the door. They dropped like flies, one by one, snarling and gurgling in their final throes.

When all the infected had stopped twitching and it didn't appear that anything else was coming to lunge out at them, Joel grabbed his machete and poked them all one by one. All dead, filled full of bullet holes. The clickers gurgled thickly until they expired, the fungal anomalies on their heads stretching reflexively but clamping down on nothing.

“Clickers,” Joel spat. He nudged one of the bodies with the toe of his boot, stepping away when a spurt of gelatinous clicker blood oozed out. “This group has been down here a while. Those runners look like they’re startin' to turn.”

“They must have been down here the first time I was here,” Lucy said quietly. She let Joel watch for any more signs of life while she began the hunt for the valve. “Or maybe not. It’s been years.”

“Good thing you didn’t go poking around down here.”

“Yeah,” Lucy agreed, nudging one of the runners as she slid past the pile of bodies. “I wasn’t in any shape to fight them off.”

The rest of the basement was thankfully empty, so they fanned out through the room so they could get out of the dam as quickly as possible.

Lucy found a set of tools on a tool rack near the back of the basement that looked helpful, a notebook full of diagrams that were still legible, and some gears she knew had counterparts that needed replacing in Jackson. Joel grabbed a few odds and ends he thought looked helpful. He might not be able to put them to use himself, but he knew enough about mechanics to know when something looked useful.

Finally, after searching through piles of rusted gears and debris, buried beneath a mountain of gears was one of the valves Lucy was looking for. She swept it all into her pack and threw it over her shoulder.

She called out over her shoulder. “Alright, I found it.”

Joel appeared at her elbow, his flashlight nearly blinding her. “We done here?”

She nodded. “Yep. That’s everything.”

They started towards the door, but Lucy stopped at the pile of dead runners one final time, stooping over to get a good look at them.

She prodded the one on top of the pile with the barrel of her pistol. “Maybe it’s the group that came looking for me. Serves them right.”

Joel knew he shouldn’t pry since this was clearly a sore subject, but he knew _nothing_. Nothing about the people in the hospital, if they were still there, what they did to her. Why they did whatever they did. Why they must have followed her out to the dam to get her back. Nothing, besides the fact that there were people, and they kept her there, and now, that they’d come looking for her here at the dam.

So, Joel asked. “People were looking for you?”

Lucy gave him a look that _almost exactly_ mirrored the one Maria would give Tommy. _Almost_. “I heard Tommy tell you some people kept me at Northside Medical.”

Joel conceded. “He did, yeah.”

Lucy motioned towards the door, and Joel led them out into the stairwell. They closed the basement door and barricaded it behind them. Those clickers would start to expel spores soon – best to make sure no one unsuspecting could get down there.

“They sent a group out after me,” Lucy said, the sound of her footsteps echoing in the stairwell. “Didn’t find me, obviously, since I’m standing here, but they got damn close.”

Joel opened the door at the top of the stairwell and held it open for Lucy to step through. “Are we gonna run into any of these people tomorrow?”

Lucy shook her head. “Not a chance.”

“And you know that because…?”

“They’re all dead,” Lucy said simply, checking over her shoulder. There might not be any runners or clickers left in the dam, but that’s not to say that a couple stalkers they may have missed couldn’t come climbing out of the woodwork. “Might run into some infected, though.”

They stepped out into the cold, blissfully bright and airy sunlight and were met with the sounds of the horses stomping at them, startled by their sudden presence. Joel shut the door behind him and threaded an old pipe through the handles, just in case. Didn’t need anything they didn’t see back in the dam popping out at them.

Joel went to unhitch Chestnut, glancing over at Lucy without speaking. If they were anywhere else, like back home in Jackson, what happened to her wouldn’t be his business – not if she didn’t want to talk about it. It still wasn’t his business now. But, if he were going in there with her, he needed to know what they’d be up against.

“Look, you don’t have to tell me what happened to you in there,” Joel said, voice low. He stepped over to where Lucy was getting Linnea ready to leave and reached up to help her tie the pack onto the huge horse’s saddle. “But if you think you know what might be waiting in that hospital for us, you need to tell me.”

Lucy dipped her head, refusing to meet his eye, but finally, she nodded. “Unless someone’s been in there to clear the place out, there’ll be infected. A lot of them, I’d guess. Shouldn’t be any people, though.”

“And you know that because?”

“Because the people who ran the hospital kept clickers on the third floor for experimentation,” Lucy replied. She couldn’t make herself meet his eye. “I set them all loose myself. So, no, there shouldn’t be any people left.”

“Not even the group who came looking for you?”

“I have a feeling we took care of them down in the basement.” Lucy paused. “But, even if that group of infected wasn’t the group that came looking for me, there wouldn’t be anything for them to go back to. I could hear the screaming a mile out.”

Joel relented. “Alright, then.”

Joel didn’t ask for anything else, even though he probably should have. There was a deep hurt there, and Lucy was clearly still dealing with it. He could understand - he’d only just gotten to the point where he could say Sarah’s name out loud.

Everyone had traumas – everyone dealt with them in their own way. If she wanted to talk, he’d listen. And if not, he was still going in the hospital with her regardless.

In an effort to lighten the mood, Lucy changed the subject. They still had a wager going on, after all. And her favorite part of patrol with Joel was to bother him about their bets (usually because she was on the losing end).

Lucy tugged Linnea’s reins to get her going. “We’re tied now, by the way. I took down four runners back there.”

“Lucky shots!”

Lucy led the way back out onto the path. “Ha, you better be glad I got in all of those _lucky shots_ or we’d still be down in that basement!”

Joel rolled his eyes and spurred Chestnut along behind her. “I got both clickers, though.”

“It all weighs the same,” Lucy said. “Except bloaters - we can count them twice.”

“I could do without those points.”

Lucy nodded. "Me, too."

* * *

** December 2034 – Jackson, Wyoming **

Joel's been back in Jackson for a week, having just returned from Austin with Tommy, when he's sent out on patrol. In what would seem to be a curious coincidence given Tommy's chosen topic of conversation _multiple_ times on the trip back to Jackson, Joel's paired with Lucy that Sunday.

Color him unsurprised.

Lucy meets him at the front gate that morning, breakfast in hand. Her breath in the December air comes out in short little frosty puffs, like a ring of smoke with every breath. She’s bundled up in multiple layers of flannels and a leather jacket to overlay the layers, arms crossed tightly over her chest to keep any amount of warmth close. She’s found a little knit hat, too (or made it herself?), and it’s just barely smushed down over the mass of orange curls.

Joel is similarly bundled up in his many layers of flannel, having never grown to enjoy the cold after living in Texas for the first thirty years of his life. He never got used to the cold in Boston, nor anywhere else. He imagines Lucy’s probably in the same boat as him – if he didn’t already know she’d grown up in Georgia, he’d have been able to guess from the accent. He doubts she likes the cold much more than he does.

She waves as he approaches and hands him a neatly wrapped little square. He can’t tell what it is by looking at it, but it smells heavenly. And it’s _warm_.

“I bring Tommy breakfast on Sunday patrol,” Lucy explains, fighting back a yawn. “Figured I’d keep with tradition. You look like you could use an extra biscuit anyway.”

Joel had been in Jackson just a little over a month when he and Tommy had run off to Austin, which wasn't nearly enough time to get back to a healthy weight. Maria had already hounded him twice about being too skinny since they’d been back – Tommy, too. And, yeah, he probably did look skinny. In fact, he knew he did – his cheeks were damn near gaunt under his beard.

And, well, Joel’s certainly not one to turn down food – especially not Lucy’s food. It’s home cooking, or close enough to it, and it's been a long time since Joel's had anything but military rations. It doesn’t matter that he'd only been in Jackson for a little over a month before leaving again; between dinner at Tommy's multiple times a week and Friday nights at Lucy's, he’d gotten spoiled by her cooking real quick.

"Smells great." Joel grins and unwraps the neat little package. It’s a biscuit with hunks of fatback bacon smushed between the soft halves. “Where’d you get the bacon?”

“Bribed Sam for it,” Lucy says, motioning towards the gate. Time to go since the night patrol is returning. “He likes those peanut butter cookies I make sometimes. I made him save the bacon for me this week.”

Joel's had the peanut butter cookies and can say with full honesty he'd trade a lot more than just bacon for them. 

He nods and takes a bite of his biscuit. “Pretty good trade.”

“I thought so, too. Sam’s easy to bribe,” Lucy winks, and Joel can imagine most people are easy to bribe to her.

They don’t have to stop at the stables since it’s just the short Sunday morning patrol, but they do make a quick stop by the armory. Joel loads a box of ammunition into his backpack and grabs a rifle off the wall. Lucy brought her own gun with her - a beastly, half-rusted shotgun – so she just takes a box of ammunition to be safe.

They heft their packs and their guns, bid good morning to the returning night patrol, and set out on their way, boots crunching through the thick layer of snow.

Lucy yawns again, and it’s contagious. “How was dinner last night? I hate that I missed it.”

Joel hasn’t seen Lucy for more than a few minutes since he’s been back this week. Tommy sends him out on patrol every day, so he’s gone until dinner usually. Maria mentioned at dinner last night that Lucy had finally been able to come back from the power plant yesterday. She’d gone home to sleep in her own bed after sleeping on one of the cots for a week.

“Oh, Maria’s hell-bent on force-feeding Ellie now,” Joel jokes. “I thought she was actually gonna break out the funnel when she said no to thirds.”

Maria had taken to heaping up Ellie’s plate whenever she could, complaining that Ellie was still too skinny. For the most part, she had left Joel alone, other than to comment he needed an extra helping. He wonders idly if Maria delegated responsibility for him to Lucy, but if that means he gets breakfast on Sundays, he won’t complain.

"I swear, Maria will run you ragged sometimes, as fussy as she can be,” Lucy rolls her eyes. “Ellie eats plenty."

“I think Ellie’s just a skinny kid,” Joel replies, smirking. He's taking to poking fun at her for still being able to squeeze through vents.

“As much as we fed her while you were gone, that’s the only conclusion,” Lucy says. “How was Austin, by the way? Everything go okay?”

“Yeah," Joel nods. He wraps his jacket tighter around him; the December chill is getting worse the farther up into the woods they go, all sunlight blocked by the trees. "It was fine."

Lucy grins at him. "I heard you found your guitar?"

Joel hasn't put the thing down in a week. He and Tommy have made a habit out of passing it back and forth after dinner, both showing out with what they remember. They stayed out on the porch until far too late last night, passing a bottle of whiskey between the two of them and playing. Joel's going to have to figure out how to make another one himself at this rate.

"I couldn't believe it was still there after all these years," he says, and he tries to keep that treacherous giddy tone out of his voice. "It's not even rotted through."

"Lucky find," Lucy says, almost wistful. "I haven't seen one in years."

They've talked about music before - they'd get lost in it if they were left alone long enough. She finally got that old radio station running a few months ago and had promised to take Joel up there one afternoon to show him around. Now that he's back, he'll have to remind her. He might even bring the guitar with him, though he has a feeling she'll try to convince him to play on air if he does.

He meets her halfway, if only in his own head. "I'll bring it to dinner one night. Do you play?"

"No, I never could pick it up," Lucy says, flexing her gloved fingers out in front of her. "My hands were always too small for the neck. My stupid little fingers couldn't make the chords."

Joel has to laugh at that. "I think you just needed a different guitar."

She snorted. "Probably. But I got frustrated, so that was the end of that."

They carry on like that for most of the walk. He'd finished his biscuit quite a while ago and stuffed the paper in his back pocket, having forced himself to slow down and enjoy it. He’s still so used to _go, go, go_ , wolf down his food, get back down to business, that it almost feels like, in the midst of this quiet morning patrol, he’s moving in slow motion.

It's nice, Joel thinks, to just patrol and talk, vigilant but not overtly so. He could get used to this. The other, longer paths are rougher, steeper, rockier. This path is just a rough stroll, hardly anything to be concerned about. He can focus on enjoying his morning, and his breakfast, and his patrol partner.

The second half of the short path is rough and overgrown, vegetation creeping out onto the path in spiraling tendrils of thorny vines, weeds, and heaps of rusty-orange pine needles. They'd thought to bring along machetes to work on clearing it out. If they kept this up, this path would be a short little dirt road outside of town.

Joel starts hacking at the weeds and shoving them off to the side. “Ellie said she’s been coming up to the radio station with you?”

“She has. I’ve been letting her pick the set,” Lucy replies, scuffing her boots along the dirt path. She hacks at a particularly vicious vine of thorns and kicks it out of the way. “Anything to get her out of that house, honestly.”

Joel pauses. “Has she not been gettin’ out?”

Lucy's obviously realized that maybe she shouldn't have said that - she can sense the _dad instincts_ kicking in. “It took her a little while with you gone, but once we got her out doing field patrols with some of the other teenagers, she opened up.”

Joel's never known Ellie to be shy - _perish the thought_. She's not lacking social skills. Social _graces_ , maybe, with her notorious potty mouth, but she'd certainly not shy. So, it couldn't be that she's nervous. Maybe she's still a little wary of the place - she'd become mistrustful in the time Joel had known her, and with good reason. He knew from experience that was a hard thing to break (he was still working on it, too).

Ellie’s supposed to come watch a movie tonight after dinner at Tommy's. Whatever's going on with her, he’ll try to get her to open up. And maybe it wouldn’t hurt to have Lucy come by as backup since Ellie seems to like her…

No, Joel better leave that alone. He’ll never be able to wipe the smirk off of Tommy’s face if he finds out.

“Say,” Lucy starts, voice low like she’s afraid someone will overhear. Doesn’t matter that it’s just the two of them walking the forest path. It’s like she almost doesn’t want to ask. “What’s that mark on Ellie’s arm?”

 _Fuck_. Joel hasn’t thought about what they’d say if someone asked. Gotta think fast, fast, _fast_.

“Uh, I think it’s a chemical burn or somethin’,” Joel replies, praying that he sounds sincere. He’s always been a bar liar. Good at bluffing, bad at lying. “She had it when I met her in Boston.”

Joel's sure that Lucy doesn't believe him, or at the very least, she doesn't think that's the whole truth. But he can't tell her what that mark is - she'd think he's crazy. Or maybe she wouldn't even believe him.

“Funny,” Lucy says, hacking at a stubborn scrub bush. “Looks an awful lot like a bite mark.”

“It’s kind of a weird pattern,” he agrees.

Lucy's quiet again for a few solid minutes, but she doesn't seem to want to change the subject. Joel's hoping his silence will deter her, but it has the opposite effect.

Finally, she says, “You know, I didn't know Tommy used to be a Firefly. He never mentioned it until he said y’all were coming back from Salt Lake City.”

“Yeah, he ran off with the Fireflies a few years after the Outbreak.”

“Never saw the appeal much myself.”

“Me either,” Joel says, and he means it. “Why do you ask?”

She's got to know something she doesn't want to say outright.

“I, uh, used to work at the CDC down in the Atlanta QZ. Just figured you might have met some of the people I worked with there," Lucy says, giving him a short look. She eyes the set of his jaw and the dark slash of eyebrows. "They all ran off with the Fireflies - said they were tired of looking at... _chemical burns_.”

Joel's never heard her mention what she did down in Atlanta for so long - just that she stayed in the quarantine zone until it finally collapsed. She likes her jokes about not being _that kind of engineer_ when someone asks her to do something, but it seems there's a grain of truth behind it. He's starting to wonder what she means by it.

But Joel knows one thing: Tommy wasn’t kidding – Lucy’s smart.

It’s not hard to figure out that Lucy’s got an inkling that mark on Ellie’s arm definitely isn't a chemical burn, but Joel’s not going to confirm it. It doesn't necessarily mean she thinks Ellie might be immune. Immunity has never been recorded before.

Whatever soft spot he’s got for Lucy won't make him tell her that story. Not yet, if ever.

But…

Again, Lucy's smart. The way she said they were tired of looking at chemical burns… She _must_ mean bite marks. There's no other way to interpret her tone, especially since, by the look on her face, she knows he's lying.

Joel’s breath catches in the back of his throat. Has she seen this before? And if so, that begs the question: What the hell did he step in at that hospital?

"Uh, I didn't really talk to anyone there except the people who told us we weren't needed."

“Right,” Lucy says and sheathes her machete. “Pecking order and all that. The Fireflies always did like their secrets.”

Lucy relents and Joel breathes out a short sigh. He can breathe easier now that she’s stopped asking questions. He's got to think of a better way to explain this. And he probably needs to talk to Ellie about it so they can keep the story straight. If it got out, the whole town would either think she's crazy or... worse. And Joel’s not going to let that happen.

They’re not back to Jackson yet, but they’re back on the clearer part of the path so they’re getting close. The temperature’s finally risen as the morning has worn on closer to noon, but it’s still freezing. But, since they’re out of the forest, at least the midday sun can reach them.

Lucy’s obviously still miserably cold, and Joel finds he’s right. She hates the cold (he does, too). Her nose is a darker red than her hair, and her cheeks are starting to get windburned and chapped. This is one of those moments where Joel is infinitely grateful his beard is still thick so the wind can’t bother most of his face.

Joel untucks the scarf from around his neck and hands it to her. "Cover your face before your nose falls off."

Lucy wraps the scarf around her nose, whining, "I hate the cold."

It's kind of cute, watching her bundle up and whine. All he can see is her eyes and her forehead.

Joel chuckles to himself. "We'll be back soon."

"I'm going straight to Tommy's," Lucy says, voice muffled. She's really got that scarf tight around her face. "I'm gonna sit in front of that fire and not move until dinner."

"I think that sounds like a plan," Joel agrees.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I take the bar exam in a week (good vibes are always appreciated), and this chapter is the product of my late-night panic attacks. Sometimes, it helps to do something productive. I'll have another chapter out probably by the end of next week! It's gonna keep getting even spicier.
> 
> Anyway, I'm going to start taking short drabble requests for Joel and a few other characters over on my writing tumblr (spaceclefairy). Leave me something if you like, and I'll start writing and posting at the end of next week!


	5. one who loved what love denied, he lives these years that i walk blind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A kiss, but not the kind you're hoping for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No gods. No masters. No fifth round of editing. We post like MEN in this house.
> 
> (This is really long. The rest of the chapters probably won't be this long, but I had a lot of ground to cover here.)
> 
> ((ALSO. QUICK WARNING. There's some very vague dialogue in the second section that might be triggering. It's not graphic, but if it's the kind of thing that triggers you, skip on down to the third section. It's just backstory.))

** Day 14 - September 2035 - Cheyenne, Wyoming – Northside Hospital **

The weather ran out of patience the morning of Day 14. Thick, overcast clouds rolled in during the night, dark gray and threatening, and it wouldn’t be long before the snow started coming down. The ground was frozen nearly solid that morning - the culmination of the staggering temperature drop and sopping wet ground.

A few flurries had fallen by the time they left camp for Northside Medical. It wasn't much more than sleet, but it started to pick up about halfway to the outer perimeter wall. Wet clumps of snow stuck to their clothes and hung damp in their hair. By the time they got back to camp, it would be coming down, and they'd be in a mess.

Joel dreaded going into Northside Medical for more reasons than just the now very real threat of getting caught out in the snow. He’d been dreading it since they left Jackson. They'd essentially be going on in blind. If Northside was filled with infected rather than people, they could handle it (not that infected were anything to sneeze at). People, however, made him nervous - they had the ability to think, and thus created a more substantial risk. As much as he didn’t want to have to deal with the infected, he’d choose them every time.

The hospital was just inside the perimeter, maybe a mile or so from the wall. The likelihood of anyone having survived in the hospital was slim, but a slim chance is still a chance. It would be easier to avoid being seen if they approached on foot, so they hitched the horses to a tree just outside the wall.

As they approached the hospital, the encroaching dread became concern. Lucy was a little too calm – too determined. He didn’t know what might be going through her head, but he was starting to wonder if her desire to find whatever she left in that hospital might be outweighing her judgment for their safety. Infected or people – neither option left any room for a lapse in judgment.

Northside towered above them as they approached, an ominous stone monolith that, by some stretch of fate or magic or evil, had somehow, from the outside, evaded the decay surrounding it. There was nothing to indicate the presence of people. No visible guards, no signs of life - just the towering expanse of stone and the slowly building layer of icy, wet sleet coating everything.

They stopped at the front doors and peered through the sliding glass, searching for movement – living or infected. While the glass doors were still intact, they were dusty on the inside and coated with frost on the outside, completely obscuring the view. Joel swiped at the frost and found it wouldn't budge. Detecting movement proved impossible - not without going in.

“So, what’s the plan here?” Joel asked. “It’s your rodeo.”

Lucy backed away from the door and leaned against the wall, watching Joel work at clearing away the frost on the door. She’d brought along the crowbar from the dam for extra precaution; she passed it from hand to hand while she thought.

“We’ll check the first floor, pick up anything that looks useful,” Lucy said. “Then we can head upstairs. The room I need to look in is on the second floor.”

“Alright,” Joel replied. He glanced up at the building, noting the thickening layer of snow on the ground. “Let’s make this quick.”

Joel started looking for a way to open the doors, but Lucy caught his arm.

“I won’t make you go in here with me,” Lucy said quietly. "It's not your responsibility..."

Joel shook his head, knowing full well he couldn't do that. “You’re not going in there by yourself. Whatever you’re looking for, if it’s still there, we’ll find it.”

The front doors were old sliding-glass doors that would have been motorized if the power were operational. The metal frame was damn near frozen shut, the blackened steel coated in a thin film of ice. Joel worked his fingers into the groove between the doors and pried them open just enough for Lucy to work her crowbar into the gap.

Lucy pried the doors open and held them apart while Joel slipped through. He did the same for her, and once they were both inside the building, he shoved a loose brick between the doors to keep them separated.

Lucy motioned for Joel to follow her, and he fell in line behind her.

The first-floor hallway was dark but for the combined beam of their flashlights and the barest hint of daylight filtering through the dusty windowpanes. The smell of rot and mildew left the air dank and wet. There were no infected loitering in the hallways, and as they tiptoed through the first floor, they found no infected in any of the rooms they checked. No people, either.

As they moved through, they picked up anything that looked useful – medicine, first aid, whatever looked helpful. Everything went into Joel’s empty pack, and when that was full, they filled up Lucy’s.

“Let’s head upstairs,” Lucy said, securing her pack of medical supplies on her back.

“Right behind you.”

The stairwell to the second floor was blocked off by the same sort of sliding glass doors as the front door. Just on the other side of the glass, spores floated down through the air in the wake of their flashlight beams. They put on their masks, pried the doors open, and slipped through, once again leaving a brick between the doors to keep them open.

The stairwell to the second floor was deserted, but unlike the first floor it was pitch black from the lack of windows. Joel could just barely see Lucy in the dark; the light filtering into the second floor didn’t quite reach them at the door to the stairwell. He’d kept his hand on her shoulder in the dark of the stairwell, as they usually did in places where it was too dark to keep track of each other by sight.

Joel felt, rather than saw, her turn towards him. She whispered, low and steady in the empty silence. "Watch your feet."

On the landing between the two floors was source of the spores. The body of a clicker moldered against the wall, attached to the stone by an outcropping of fungus. The wall surrounding the dead clicker was splattered with old, blackened blood, still pilled up in gelatinous chunks.

The second-floor sign read OBSTETRICS in bold letters, like an old EXIT sign. Just as with the first floor, the only light illuminating the second floor filtered in through the dusty glass windows. It was just bright enough to see the concrete walls were streaked with wet, probably the result of a water main break on one of the upper floors. The reeking odor was could be detected through the walls.

On the other side of the sliding glass doors, infected milled about, stirring up the spores within. It was clickers, mostly, lurching and twitching. They shuffled about, shrieking and bumping into obstacles they couldn’t see.

“I was in Room 3, so it should be in there,” Lucy mumbled close to his ear; he still could barely see her. “Stay here and keep the doors open.”

Oh, absolutely not.

“You are _not_ going down there by yourself,” Joel snapped, trying to keep his voice down. "It's completely overrun."

“I’m not arguing about this, Joel,” Lucy huffed. “These doors take fucking forever to get open, and the less noise we make, the better. It's not far - you’ll be able to see me the whole time I’m in the hallway.”

His hand had slipped down from her shoulder to her back in the pitch-black stairwell.

“I’m not letting you get yourself killed –

“I’m not letting _you_ get killed over _me_ ,” Lucy countered. "I'm the one who wanted to come in here."

"I'm not-" Joel shook his head and stroked his beard. "If you get hurt-"

"I won't," Lucy said, " _Please_ , just keep the doors open.”

That was the end of that.

"If it's not in there-"

She squeezed his bicep. "I'll turn right around."

"And then I will _come with you_ to find it," Joel said. "Be careful."

He helped her pry the doors open and stepped between them, keeping his back up against one door and his knee against the other. With his hands free, he could keep his pistol at the ready.

“I’ll make it quick,” Lucy assured him. “If something happens, _run_. You’ll need to get those parts for the dam back to Jackson.”

Not happening. But Joel didn’t argue; instead, with Lucy’s back turned to him, he quietly set his backpack down on the floor between his legs. If he had to move quickly, it would keep the doors from slamming completely shut.

Room 3 wasn’t too far from the doors, but it was far enough. Lucy crouched and kept close to the wall, trying to make herself as small and quiet as possible. Clickers were scattered throughout the hallway between point A and point B, twitching and screeching. She kept her crowbar at the ready. It might not be as effective as a gun, but it would attract less attention than a gunshot if she had to use it.

Lucy checked every room as she went. The first room had become home to a dead, spore-spewing clicker, while the second room housed two living (though perhaps that was a _loose_ definition) clickers. A couple more dead clickers had, like the one in the stairwell, attached to the walls of the hallway and started to spew spores as they moldered.

The closer she crept to Room 3, the more infected seemed to appear. There were thickets of them wandering around in the dark. Screeching. _Hunting_. The nurse’s station was crammed with them, bumping into each other and tearing at each other. The hall was lined with them. Too many. Far, far too many.

This was such a bad idea.

In Room 3, where she’d been kept for six months, Lucy hit the jackpot.

From the doorway, she could see the backpack she’d left sitting on a shelf, along with a couple other personal items that had remained totally untouched over the years. Every inch of her skin, right down to the tips of her fingers, felt like she’d grabbed onto the end of a cattle prod.

 _The bag was there._ Her heart pounded in her chest, and she thanked any deity listening that clickers couldn’t hear _that well_. One and done - one stop, no searching, no crawling through groups of clickers. The bag was _right there_.

And, as these things go, a bloater was _right there_ too, standing in the opposite corner of the room.

It’s a big ol’ son of a bitch, too. Must have been one of the original clickers the people at the hospital had been letting turn, because the thing was _huge_.

Lucy was many things - stupid was not among them. She kept a hand over her mouth and let out a shaky sigh. If it looked like something was wrong, Joel would come running whether she told him to or not unless, _maybe_ , she was obviously already dead. That was part of what made him a good patrol partner (and friend), and Lucy was grateful for that. But that overprotective streak meant he’d try to get to her and end up squished by a bloater or eaten by clickers, too.

No sudden movements. Nothing's wrong. Because if something's wrong, Joel's gonna come running, and then they'd both be fucked.

Admittedly, willingly walking into a room with a bloater was one of her poorer life decisions. But, here we are. Quietly, slowly, keeping as small as could be, she crept into the room with the bloater.

No sudden movements. Nothing's wrong. Joel's not coming.

She crouched down and inched along so, _so_ slowly over to the shelf, making sure that not so much as a squeak or a sigh came from her. Once she got to the shelf, she picked up the bag and gingerly slipped her arms through the straps so that it was situated on top of the bag she already carried.

But, it turned out, Lucy had a problem.

Before she began the excruciating crawl back to the door, she turned towards the bloater. It was still in the same place, hunched in the corner of the room, groaning and rumbling and twitching occasionally.

The bloater wasn't the problem.

Lucy discovered, as she checked over in the corner, that she hadn’t seen the clicker right next to the bloater. It had been perched behind the bloater’s arm, almost totally out of view, and, until it _screeched_ , hadn’t made a sound.

The screech not only startled itself, but the bloater as well. The behemoth groaned a deep, thundering gurgle that felt not unlike the gates of Hell had started to open up in the tiny hospital room.

Without stopping to see if either infected moved, Lucy crawled towards the door.

The clicker continued to screech as she crawled, alerting more of them outside. Infected poured into the tiny hospital room, hunting the source of the screeching and adding to the deafening alarm.

Lucy broke through the doorway and narrowly missed being smashed in the back of the head by a flailing clicker charging through. She scrambled to get out of the way, pressed down to the floor and against the wall to stay clear. She could just barely see Joel’s outline at the door and crawled towards his cloudy form.

Joel held the gun up at the ready, startled by the screeching clickers. His view was clouded thanks to the ever-thickening fog of spores and hazy lighting. But he could, however, see well enough to know that nothing was charging after her just yet.

There were still several clickers standing between the two of them. Any sudden movement on his part with that many infected standing between the two of them would cause more harm than good. So, he kept his gun trained over Lucy's head.

Lucy army-crawled along the floor, barely managing to dodge another flailing clicker. Infected still charged towards Room 3, clambering not more than an inch next to her. She clutched onto her crowbar like a security blanket, ready to start swinging. _Almost there_ , just one more room and another short stretch before they could put Northside behind them.

Turns out, though, there had been more than a single dead spore-spewing infected in the first room. There’d been a clicker just on the other side of the wall, out of view.

At the same moment Lucy crept past the door, the clicker charged out of the room, and, quite literally, stumbled over her legs. The sudden, lurching movement knocked the crowbar from her hands. It clattered to the floor, just out of reach.

The clicker launched itself at her, snarling, and stretching its reaching, itching fingers after her. She managed to kick it away before it could grab her. She snatched the crowbar, preparing for the clicker to launch itself at her again, and scooted back just far enough away that she could turn and run. It reached for her again, scrambling with filthy fingers, and she managed this time to kick it hard enough in the head to knock it backwards.

A shot rang out, altering the rest of the infected.

Lucy looked up to find Joel standing over her, pistol in hand. He hauled her to her feet and yanked her towards the sliding doors that he’d kept open with the bag of medical supplies.

The bag couldn’t keep the doors far enough open for them to slide through, but he pried them apart enough for her to slip through. She took over, keeping the doors apart while he squeezed through. Once he was through, he grabbed the bag, and she let the doors snap shut behind them.

Lucy froze, staring down the hall at the carnage. Joel grabbed her.

“Those doors won’t hold,” Joel said, pulling Lucy along.

The bloater, it seemed, had woken up and decided to investigate the noise. Just as the doors snapped shut, a sack of spores slammed into the glass, cracking it. The bloater roared and charged, readying itself to launch another sack in the direction of all the noise.

“Lou, we have to go now!”

Somewhere between stunned and terrified, she nodded and turned her flashlight on, directing it downwards so they could keep their footing in the pitch-black stairwell.

They’d thankfully thought to keep the first-floor doors open. The doors snapped shut behind them just as the second-floor doors cracked open from the force of the bloater’s charge.

They ran, shoving decrepit medical carts and rotting boxes out of the way as they went. They clutched at each other, pulling the other along and racing down the hall just as the stairwell doors came down.

The bloater charged out, scattering shattered glass in its wake. It launched another pollen sack in their direction, narrowly falling short of its mark. Clickers poured out from behind the bloater and charged them, following the slams of their footsteps as they ran.

The collective thundering volume of the shrieking was hellish.

They’d kept the stubborn front doors open with a brick they’d found in the grass outside, and it took both of their body weight leveraging the crowbar to pry them totally open again. They ducked out, nearly tripping over their own feet, and kept right on running.

They ran until they reached the perimeter of the city, neither of them checking backwards. It was a matter of putting as much distance as possible between them and the hospital. Out here, at least, they could find somewhere to hide if they had to.

Finally, with the horses in sight, they stopped running, sure that nothing was coming for them. Lucy bent double, gasping for air, limbs and chest screaming. When she stood up, it was with one hand on her gasping chest and the other hand digging at the knot in her side to try to work it out.

Before she could catch her breath, Joel caught her shoulders and turned her around, checking to make sure nothing was broken, or bleeding, or bitten. “Are you hurt?”

Lucy didn’t respond, just looked up at him like she wasn’t really seeing him.

Joel stepped back, still holding her at arm’s length. “ _Lucy_. Are you hurt?”

She shook her head, still silent. The bag was still on her shoulders; her nails had dug clean through the fabric straps.

“You have got to open your mouth and talk to me, _please_ ,” Joel said, frantic. He squeezed her shoulders to get her attention, careful not to hurt her in case something was wrong. “Are you okay?”

 _Please_. His pleading voice seemed to snap her out of whatever was going on up in her head. She searched his hazel eyes, the lines on his face, the shape of his nose, the tight set of his mouth. He’d never looked at her like this, like he was at a loss of what to do.

Finally, she nodded. “I’m okay.”

“Are you bleeding?”

“No.”

“ _Bit_?”

“No.”

Joel pulled her to his chest. She started, still running on adrenaline and fear, and almost pulled away. Once her base instincts determined that there was no danger, she relaxed in his hold.

“Don’t ever - _ever_ -”

He didn't finish, and Lucy didn’t respond, just nodded against his chest. _Don't ever do that again._ Understood. Not a problem. She wrapped her arms around his waist, and he could feel her shaking.

Joel let go just as quickly as he'd grabbed her. “And you got what you were looking for?”

Lucy held up the bag and found she’d torn right through spots in the fabric. “Got it.”

“Let’s get back to camp,” Joel said, finally stepping back. His hair was disheveled where he’d raked his hands through it. “Can you keep steady enough to ride alone?”

“Yeah.”

Joel nodded and motioned over towards the horses. Chestnut eyed them with distrust, as if he could smell infected on them. Linnea was sound asleep standing up, snoring like an old man.

“ _Wait_.”

Joel turned around, the question of _why_ on the tip of his tongue.

She fished a tiny jar out of the bag and handed it to him. “I don’t know if it’s still good.”

It was a tiny glass jar of coffee beans, dusty on the outside from years of abandonment and sealed by a metal hinge and glass stopper.

“They let me keep some with me because I liked the smell,” Lucy said. “It was still in my bag.”

Joel turned the jar over in his hand, the gentle clink of the beans somehow deafening in the stillness around them.

"I know you've been looking for some."

Joel nodded and stowed the little jar in his jacket pocket. "Thanks."

Joel readied Chestnut to leave, stuck in his own head. _She's okay_. That’s the only thing stopping him from freaking out. That, and this fucking little jar that he kept turning over and over between his fingers, stowed in his jacket pocket, because it had somehow grounded him - tangible evidence that she was still standing next to him.

She's okay. They're both okay.

Joel felt like he’d been punched in the chest. He didn’t know how to put a name to it. He’s mad. He’s scared. He’s concerned. He's mad that he didn't put his foot down and go down the hallway with her (what could he have even done about the fucking _clicker alarm system_?). He’s scared she might do it again. And he’s terrified that next time she does something reckless - and she _will_ , because everyone does - she won’t be okay.

But, the one thing Joel could put a name to was this: he loves her.

He knew that. He’s _known_ that. He loves her. It’s that horrible, dreaded four letter word he's been avoiding all his life. But there it is.

His chest felt like it had been cracked open. He loves her and he let her walk down that fucking hallway alone anyway.

Being ripped apart by that clicker would have felt better than this.

* * *

** Day 14 - September 2035 - Cheyenne, Wyoming **

They made it back to the campsite unscathed – just cold and shaken. The snow began to fall just as they rode back in. It was the kind of wet, heavy snow that sticks and makes for a miserable night of camping outside.

Lucy had been dead silent since they left the perimeter of the city. What a stupid idea, going in there alone. Or going in there at all. She’d been plagued by the ache that not only had she nearly gotten them both killed, Joel didn’t even know what he’d almost been killed over. Hadn't even asked. Just made sure she was alive and okay and led them back to camp while she dissociated in the saddle.

As much as Lucy would rather forget it, she had to tell him. It would be easier to tell him than, say, Maria or Tommy anyway. Less to explain.

Joel had lost Sarah. He'd get it.

Lucy tended the horses while Joel got the food ready. They’d be tearing down the campsite and leaving probably before sunrise, so she kept everything consolidated down as much as possible to make the morning easier. She tied all the packs down to Linnea's saddle, as she was the bigger horse, and left the saddle behind their makeshift tent.

She turned out the contents of the bag once she'd finished. Apart from the dead creepy-crawlies that had found their merry way into the bag, nothing was amiss. From the pile of odds and ends, pictures and trinkets and little books, Lucy picked out what she’d hoped would still be in there. It was a bracelet, just a little metal thing - hardly more than a medical bracelet with a dog tag attached. But it was there. She slipped it over her wrist and went to get settled in for the night.

Joel finished up with dinner as Lucy got the horses settled in. The rations weren’t spectacular, but there wasn’t much he could do to make them taste any better. It was _food_ and it was _hot_ , and that’s really all he could ask. Once he got everything ready, he brought the ration packs into the tarp and made himself comfortable.

Lucy picked up some spare blankets and a ration packet and got ready to do a bit of storytelling.

"Got room under there?" Lucy asked, gesturing down at Joel's seating arrangement. He was tucked up under a thick blanket in the tarp they’d built to keep them out of the elements. "I brought extra blankets."

Joel nodded and lifted the edge of his blanket so she could crawl under next to him. The chill outside was unbearable, but there was no better heater than one that ran at 98.6 degrees. It was too cold for the fire to completely stave off the chill, and the extra layer of warmth was necessary (and welcome). They'd have to stay like this for the night and probably every night until they got back to the watchposts or found shelter out of the snow.

Lucy wrapped one of the blankets around their shoulders and threw another one on top of them. They sat shoulder to shoulder as they ate, watching the fire crackle and pop in the evening light.

"I'll go get another blanket if we get cold," Lucy said, very aware of Joel's body heat and a little too comfortable with it. “We’ve got plenty.”

"Sorry if I snore," Joel hummed, nudging her shoulder. "Just poke me if you have to."

She snorted. "I have not once heard you snore."

"There’s a first time for everything," he shrugged. "Tonight might be the night I start."

She laughed. “Please don’t.”

It's nice, the closeness and the warmth.

"You can ask, you know."

Joel turned to look at her and found he was close enough to see the flecks of gold in her grey eyes. "Ask what?"

"About the hospital."

He looked down at his ration pack. "Didn't want to pry."

Lucy had already finished her rations, having apparently worked up an appetite after nearly becoming a meal herself. "I think you deserve to ask why we went in there."

“I’m only askin’ if you feel like tellin’.”

“I do.” She worked her hand out of the blankets to show him a small metal bracelet. "I wanted this back."

The bracelet was engraved in clumsy letters on the back of the dog tag - _Noah_.

She tucked her hand back up under the blankets out of the cold. “Among other things. Some pictures, a couple old books… Everything in my bag."

“Why’d you have coffee with you?” Joel asked. He didn’t ask about the name on the bracelet; he assumed (correctly, it would turn out) that _Noah_ was part of the story.

Lucy smiled. “I found it when I got to the perimeter of the city, but I didn’t have anything to grind the beans, so I just kept it for later.

“I think I would’ve eaten the beans whole,” Joel said, _mostly_ joking (he absolutely would have). He crumpled up his empty ration packet. “Alright, what happened in that hospital?”

Lucy chewed her bottom lip, thinking about where to start. "A cult happened."

More than a few strange cults had been formed over the past twenty years. Some worshipped people or things. Some worshipped the infection. Cults like _that_ had been popping up like wildfire in recent years.

"They had certain beliefs about children."

Joel had heard of groups like that, though he'd never seen one. "A breeder cult?"

The name was not uncommon, just whispered in hushed tones whenever one reared it's ugly head.

"Not exactly, but close." Lucy shifted, tense. "They were trying to breed immunity to stop the outbreak, not just overpopulate. They thought that children had natural immunity."

"Jesus."

"Yeah," Lucy said, sighing. “Maria left the Atlanta QZ about a year before I did - said she wanted to try to get home to her dad in Jackson. I left Atlanta when the infection got out of control, right before they started bombing it. She wanted me to leave with her, but… I didn’t. I should have. Wouldn’t have spent six months in that hospital if I had."

Lucy and Maria were glued together, joined at the hip. Joel couldn't imagine either one being willing to leave the other behind.

"Why didn't you?"

Lucy watched as an ember from the fire jumped out into the snow, winking out as soon as it touched the cold. "My job was necessary. I thought I was doing the right thing by staying.”

Joel wanted to ask what that meant, but it didn’t seem like part of the story. Apart from knowing that she’d worked at the CDC for a long time, he didn’t know what she actually did there. She made little comments every now and then, obscure references and her odd little jokes, but she'd avoid the question if asked.

“Anyway, I stopped at a militia camp up in Kentucky and ended up staying there for almost a year.”

“Awful long time to stay.”

She nodded. “I met someone there. He didn’t want to leave with me.”

Down in the pit of his stomach, Joel felt the smallest flash of jealousy. He squashed it down - now wasn’t the time for that. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m not. He was… convenient," Lucy shrugged. "I guess that sounds callous, but there’s no other way to describe it.”

Loneliness will do funny things to a person. Joel wasn't unfamiliar with the feeling. Most people nowadays have been there at some point, especially the ones who, like Joel and Lucy, were adults (or basically adults) when the Outbreak happened.

“It took me about two months to get up to Wyoming from there - got turned around,” Lucy continued. “Once I hit the Wyoming border, I got pretty sick and it wouldn’t go away.”

Joel had a feeling he knew where this was going. He’s been a parent. He knows what that means.

She stared into the fire, at the way the twigs crumbled after being burned. “I think I was about twelve weeks along by the time I got to Cheyenne, so I would’ve made it to Jackson in plenty of time if I hadn’t been caught along the perimeter of the city.”

Joel wanted to reach out and draw her into his side. But he didn't. He let her continue and watched her stare into the fire.

“They seemed normal enough when they caught me, but… they weren’t.” She shifted underneath the blanket, folding in on herself. “They ran some tests on me, made sure I wasn’t infected. And when they found out I was pregnant, they stuck me in a room and didn’t let me leave.”

She held up the bracelet.

“They let me have some odds and ends - kept me from being bored. I made the bracelet.”

She was quiet for a few seconds.

“Something was wrong - I don’t know what - but I went into labor early.” She paused. “I don't remember anything. They knocked me out and did an emergency c-section. When I woke up, they told me what they did with him.”

Joel was grateful, in that moment, that there was no one in the hospital when they arrived. There certainly wouldn’t have been by the time they left.

This time, he didn't hesitate. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her against his chest, tightening the blanket around them. She relaxed against him, grateful for the touch.

"I gave it about a week so I could recover," Lucy continued. “I didn't know the way out, so I needed a distraction. I remembered some of the nurses saying they kept clickers up on the third floor for experiments, so while the guards were switching out, I snuck out of my room and set them loose."

There'd been a lot of infected left in that hospital. Joel guessed most people hadn’t gotten out.

“I grabbed one of the travel packs they kept stocked for scouts and walked right out the front door. There were enough rations and water to keep me going for two weeks and a first aid kit so I could change my bandages, but being out in the wilderness alone for two weeks… I had to do the best I could. When I showed up to Jackson, I had a pretty nasty infection. Doc kept me alive.”

Lucy leaned her head against his shoulder. Even through Joel's thick coat, he felt solid. "Don’t tell Maria, alright? She worries.”

Joel chuckled. "I noticed."

"Kind of hard not to, especially since Tommy does it, too." Lucy yawned. "Don't tell him either."

"Secret's safe with me."

After a few minutes, Joel glanced down to find Lucy had fallen asleep against him. He'd almost fallen asleep himself, head nodding to rest against the top of hers. It couldn't be the most comfortable position, but he couldn't find it in himself to shake her awake.

Lucy shifted, nuzzling into his shoulder, and rested her hand on top of his stomach, still fast asleep. Her short, even breaths fanned over his chest and along the exposed skin of his neck. Yeah, he should wake her up.

So, Joel shook her gently, trying to rouse her without startling her.

Lucy looked up at him, blinking blearily. “Is it my turn for watch?”

“No, I just…” Joel cleared his throat. “Didn’t want you to wake up with a crick in your neck.”

Lucy nodded, burrowing back into his shoulder, and, _oh_ , his heart hurt. She retracted her hand from his stomach, and her absence left him cold. “Can I stay here? You’re warm.”

His throat tightened. “Yeah. ‘Course.”

She then promptly fell right back to sleep, tucked up under his arm. Though his arm had long since fallen asleep, he had no intention to move it.

* * *

** December 2034 – Jackson, Wyoming **

Joel's never been a fan of parties, not even when he was younger. Not even before the Outbreak. It's too many people crammed into a small space, and there's no room to breathe or think. It's too loud, too busy, too cramped.

But it's New Year's Eve. Therefore, Joel is at a party.

By all accounts, it's a fun party. The community center has been decked out in streamers and lights. Every table is covered and laden down with food and drinks. There's a makeshift band playing at the front of the hall using instruments they found in the back of the old church down the street. The middle of the floor has been cleared of tables to use as a dancefloor, and a whole group of kids and teenagers are taking full advantage of it. Even a few of the adults are getting in on the fun, swaying awkwardly near the fringes of the floor, too embarrassed to really dance.

Tommy and Maria are two of the awkward dancing adults, having both put back more than a few drinks already. Almost everyone, including them, had been given the day off, so they'd been relaxing with a drink in hand for most of the day.

Joel has staked his claim at one of the tables at the edge of the dancefloor. He's content with holding down the fort and sipping a beer while Tommy and Maria have a good time dancing. From this vantage point, he can see nearly everyone in the room (small-town nosiness never fades, not even after the apocalypse).

Ellie's over near the front of the room with a group of the younger teenagers. She seems to be back to her usual self, though it took a while. It was a mishmash of movie nights, and field patrol with her new friends, and dinner at Tommy's that ultimately got her out of that awkward funk. And, as Joel's noticed, she's been attached at the hip to one of the girls since she got here (Cat? he thinks that's her name). She seems like she’s having fun, and he’s glad to see it.

Joel hasn't found Lucy yet, but it's still pretty early in the night. She's one of the few who didn't get the whole day off, as she'd been scheduled at the hospital that day. Doc must have kept her past the end of her shift again. He’s been doing that more often lately since he's figured out that Lucy really _can_ fix anything; sometimes he keeps her so long at night that Tommy has to go down to the hospital and rescue her.

And, as Joel's amused to find, Tommy wasn't joking – the sparkling newness hasn’t worn off of him yet; he’s getting more than a few interested looks already. The women his age surely aren't shy about giving him a good once-over - hell, the younger women aren't shy about it either. He's kind of starting to feel like a show pony at the fair.

Like, it’s not that he’s not enjoying the attention (he kind of is) – he’s just not used to it. More than a few people ask him to dance. He's polite, as he always is, when he declines to dance, but no one seems to be deterred by the rejection.

After a few songs, Tommy and Maria return to the table, red-faced, breathless and downright giddy. They sit down with their drinks and survey the growing crowd.

Tommy elbows him in the arm. "How many women did you just turn down to dance?"

Joel rolls his eyes. "Wasn't keeping count."

He did count. Six.

"You don't have to marry 'em, Joel," Tommy says. "Just go dance and have fun."

"I'm havin' plenty of fun right here with my drink," Joel smirks. "Besides, I have patrol with a couple of them next week. I’m sure I’ll have to deal with it then."

"You're _new_. They'll leave you alone eventually – maybe," Maria grins. She takes a long sip of her drink (it's just water now). "Have you seen Lucy yet?"

Joel hasn't. The orange puff of curls is hard to miss. And she’d be sitting here with them if she were in the building.

"Not yet."

Tommy shakes his head. "I'm good in mind to go check if she's still down at the hospital."

"I think we ought to go rescue her," Maria agrees, motioning for Tommy to follow her. "We'll be right back."

They're gone for less than ten minutes when Joel sees the streak of orange out of the corner of his eye.

Lucy’s dressed up just like everyone else, sporting a warm wool flannel, leather jacket, and scarf ( _his scarf_ , that traitorous little voice at the back of his mind reminds him). Her hair is down, which is different. It’s the first time Joel’s ever seen it down. It's _long_ , the ends curling up just past the middle of her back. And there's _so much of it_. No wonder she keeps it up all the time.

Lucy parts the crowd like the sea, probably looking for Tommy or Maria. Or him. She finds Ellie before she finds Joel and catches the teenager in a hug. Ellie's gotten attached, Joel's noticed, over the past few months. She spends half the night at dinner either playing cards with Lucy or helping her clean up.

It’s nice to see. Ellie needs the positivity.

Lucy finally catches Joel’s eye and waves after she leaves Ellie and her friends. She pushes through the crowd to get to the table he’s still holding.

"Oh, good, I've been looking for you!"

She sits down, and Joel's not quite expecting to find… this.

Joel's seen her tipsy before, but Lucy can hold it down well. Tonight, though, she's giggly and grinning, spurred on by the mix of drinks and the cold outside. The reddish flush on her cheeks very nearly matches her hair.

It's… cute. Endearing, even.

Joel could smell whatever’s in her cup before she even sat down. He glances down at the cup in her hand. "Looks like you're already having fun."

"Yeah, I decided to try out that moonshine I've been making while I got dressed," Lucy says, swirling whatever liquid was still in her cup. "It's a little strong."

She tips her head back and empties the cup, pulling a face that scrunches up her nose. Joel is trying _so hard_ not to laugh, but he doesn’t quite succeed.

"Where's Tommy and Maria?" she asks, pushing the cup off to the side. “I thought they wanted to get here early.”

Joel clears his throat because he realizes he’s staring. "They went looking for you. Figured Doc kept you down at the hospital."

"Oh, yeah, he did. That's not why I'm late." She gestures vaguely at her hair. "Takes me forever to do something with this, but I wanted to look nice."

He smiles. "You do."

It falls out of his mouth too fast for him to stop it, but the way she's beaming at him is worth the embarrassment.

Joel continues, suddenly more interested in his drink. "I'm sure they'll be back soon."

Lucy frowns at her empty cup. "I'm gonna grab another drink. You need one?"

His drink is more than half-full. Joel shakes his head. "I'm alright."

She's pouting at her empty cup like it offends her, and it takes everything in him not to laugh. "Stay right here."

She runs up to the bar where Sam is doling out the liquor. He pulls out a half-empty bottle of clear liquid and turns to grab a clean cup. Before he can turn around, Lucy snags the bottle from the table and makes her way back over to him, swigging directly from the neck as she parts the crowd.

"You're gonna be hurting tomorrow," he chuckles.

"Worth it," Lucy replies, winking at him. She leans in, and she's close enough that he can see the flecks of gold in her gray eyes. "I got a question.”

There’s an odd twinge of nerves down in his gut. “Yeah?”

“Why do half the women in this room look like they want to tar and feather me and throw me in the lake?"

"Uh…" he pauses, and looks around to find that, indeed, most of the women he'd turned down that night were either giving him a knowing grin or looking a bit disgruntled. "Might be because they asked me to dance and I declined."

"Well, look at you - breaking hearts tonight," Lucy teases, and takes another sip. Her tongue peeks out to catch an errant drop of liquor from the lip of the bottle. Her ensuing grin is downright conspiratorial. "Wanna help me twist the knife a little?"

“Twist the…?” He finally catches on. She’s asking him to dance. "Aw, you don't mean dan-"

"I surely do," Lucy says, taking his hand and pulling him to his feet. "Come on, Mr. Lady’s Man, I don’t bite."

Lucy leaves her bottle of gin on the table next to Joel's beer. He lets himself be pulled without resistance to the edge of the dancefloor, very much aware that there are a _lot_ of eyes on them.

Lucy takes his hand and places the other one on his shoulder. He drops his down to her hip as lightly as he can. They're a respectable distance apart, no closer than she'd be if she were dancing with, say, Tommy or Maria. Just friends having a dance. (Somewhere, deep, _deep_ down in the back of his mind, he remembers his Sunday school teacher telling him to _leave room for Jesus_.)

Tommy’s never going to let him live this down if he hears about this (or _sees_ it – where are they?).

"Damn, Maria wasn't kidding. You've got a regular little fan club," Lucy snickers. “You should see their faces.”

The moonshine draws out her accent en force, and Joel finds himself slipping into a little more of a drawl himself. Like company and all that. "She said it’s because I’m _new_."

"That’ll do it." She peeks over his shoulder. "I might have to fight for your honor before the end of the night."

He’s painfully aware of how small her hand is compared to his, and how well it fits against his palm. Her fingers are calloused. "Make sure it's a clean fight. No kidney shots or knee sweeps."

"No promises," Lucy replies. Her hand has slipped down closer to his bicep while she's been peeking around to be nosy. "A little hair pullin' builds character."

More people have shown up, and the party is in full swing now. The combined forces of the music and groups of chattering people have made it hard to hear. The band is struggling to compete with the din of conversation, and so has decided that overcompensation is the appropriate avenue to take. It's fuckin' loud.

Lucy steps in closer so she can be heard over the music and people talking. "Wanna go to the radio station?"

Joel's startled by the question, mostly because her mouth is close to his ear and it's kind of a _let's get out of here_ question. But she promised to show him the radio station once he got back from Austin, so it's definitely _not_ that kind of question. Which, ya know, shows him where his mind's been for the past few minutes. Unintentionally. But, yeah, still _there_.

“And let my _suitors_ see us leaving together?” Joel raises an eyebrow. "Imagine the outrage."

"Oh, hush," Lucy laughs and squeezes his bicep. "I promised I'd show you the station, didn't I? This is the most free time we've had since you've been back."

Joel could do with some fresh air. "Lead the way."

He lets go, but he kind of wishes they’d have at least finished the song. They grab their drinks and slip out the side door, both very much aware of the nosy eyes trained on them.

"Keep a good lookout," Lucy says, cutting through the crowd. "Never know when one of your _suitors_ will throw the white glove down at me on the way out."

Joel holds the door open. “My money’s on you.”

“It better be.”

The community center isn’t far from the radio station, so it’s a short walk. Lucy’s still clutching onto the bottle of gin, turning it up every few minutes to take an enthusiastic sip. Joel’s not quite so adventurous – he’ll stick with the drink he has and maybe grab a second one after they leave the radio station. He’s relaxed since settling into Jackson, but he’s nowhere near _letting-loose_ relaxed.

Granted, watching Lucy up-end a bottle of gin makes for a fun evening stroll.

Lucy fishes her keys out of her pocket and unlocks the radio station’s backdoor. It takes her a couple of tries, being that it’s dark and she’s tipsy (and straying ever closer to full-on drunk with each sip), but she works it open and steps inside.

One of the walls is covered in old albums and yellowed posters. There’s a shelf precariously stacked with CD’s – well-stocked, by all accounts. The broadcasting equipment has been painstakingly cleaned and repaired; it’s so pristine that if someone told him he’d stepped back in time about twenty years, he might’ve believed it.

All in all, Joel’s impressed – mightily impressed.

“Lou, this is…” He walks in and starts shuffling through the stacks of CD’s. “Not bad.”

She _smiles_ , and it’s so _smug_ , and Joel kind of loves that look. “I can only take most of the credit. The CD’s were already here, and I just cleaned up the décor. I fixed all the equipment, though.”

Lucy runs her hand along the soundboard and starts flipped switches. The lights blink to life like so many stars in the night, and the mechanical hum is loud in the evening air.

“It's my magnum opus, if you will,” Lucy states. She holds out her hand, “Pass me a CD, please, _Mr. Miller_.”

Joel hands her a disc. It’s old country - outlaw country - which is almost exactly what Lucy expects from him. She approves.

With an answering smile, she pops the disc into one of the readers, flips the switch, and Willie Nelson starts to warble over the speakers. The speakers don’t sound too bad, either, despite being easily almost thirty years old.

“How’d you do all this?” Joel asks, and this might be the first time he’s really smiled in… months.

Lucy shrugs. “Trial and error, mostly. A lot of long nights.”

“Time well spent.”

There’s a couch in the back corner of the room, so they sit down to listen for a while. Lucy’s still sipping from the bottle of gin, though upon further inspection, it doesn’t look like she’s really had that much to drink from it. Joel has finally finished his drink, but he doesn’t quite know what to do with empty bottle.

Now that they’re just sitting around, the silence between them is… heavy. Awkward, really. And the longer they sit there, the closer it strays into uncomfortable. It’s not an uncommon occurrence as of late, and it only gets heavier each time.

Despite that, it's pleasant. It's _normal_ , just sitting around with a friend, listening to music and drinking. It’s the closest life has felt to _normal_ in twenty years.

Since Joel’s been back, he’s been trying to assimilate into Jackson’s small-town culture. Assimilation, for him, means internalizing the good things rather than focusing on everything that’s gone wrong in the past few years. And it’s been fucking painful trying to wrap his head around that.

But it’s like he’s stepped back into the days before the Outbreak – like he’s back home in his small hometown outside of Austin. Sometimes he gets up in the morning worried that he’s late for work and the contractor in charge of the jobsite is going to give him an earful for being late. He finds himself listening out for a phone call from Tommy, or his parents, or one of his buddies. He half-expects to walk into his home and find Sarah watching TV, waiting for daddy to get home for dinner.

Here, he doesn’t have to look over his shoulder at every turn. There are no rival smugglers waiting to put a bullet in his head, or hunters stalking around, or Fireflies searching for revenge. No infected.

It's downright surreal.

But he has Tommy back, and Maria comes as part of the package. He has Ellie, and even some of Ellie’s new friends show up to dinner with her. He’s made his own friends - mostly patrol partners and Tommy's friends. He’s even started hanging out with Lucy, just the two of them.

They make it through about three songs before Joel figures they should head out. They did sneak out of the community center, after all, and they both know that looks suspicious.

“We might ought to get back,” Joel says, nudging Lucy's shoulder. She’s leaning her head back against the couch cushion, eyes closed, just listening to the music. “Tommy and Maria are probably back by now.”

She cracks an eye open, the tiniest smile curling her lips. “I’m sure your _suitors_ are missin’ you.”

“I’m sure they are,” Joel chuckles, and holds out a hand to pull her to her feet. “You’re ridiculous.”

“Only when I’m drinking.”

Lucy locks up the station, and they make their way back to the community center. The crowd is at max capacity now that the whole town has shown up. The side door is wide open, and they slide back in like they never left.

Lucy catches his elbow as the door shuts behind her. "I'm gonna go grab another drink. Do you want one?"

"Yeah," Joel replies. It’ll be his second drink, and two drinks are more than enough for him right now. "I'm gonna go find Tommy."

"I'll meet you back at the table."

Joel starts searching for Tommy and Maria while Lucy runs off, and he finds them back at the same table. Tommy gives him a look as he walks up - a look that's mirrored nearly perfectly by Maria.

“So,” Tommy starts, grinning slyly.

Joel takes a seat, pointedly ignoring Tommy's grin. “I don’t know what you’re about to say, but don’t start.”

“You turn down how many women,” Tommy starts anyway, looking like he’s about to rub Joel’s nose in the dirt, “and dance with her?”

Tommy nods over to where Lucy’s run off. She's found Ellie again and pulled her out to the dancefloor, drinks left on the table where the teenagers are crowding. She turns and dips Ellie, the fluff of orange curls obscuring both of them. Ellie’s laugh can be heard over the music.

“Tommy…”

“And _then_ you disappear for half an hour?”

Lucy grabs another one of Ellie’s friends (Dina? Joel has a lot of names to remember) and pulls her out onto the floor with the two of them.

Joel rolls his eyes, bringing his full attention back to Tommy. “We went to the radio station.”

“Did anything _happen_ at the radio station?”

“ _No_.”

Tommy raises an eyebrow, incredulous. “Did you want it to?”

Joel shakes his head. “I’m not talking about this.”

"Jesus Christ, Joel," Tommy sighs. “How long are you gonna be stubborn about this?”

" _Not now_ , Tommy."

Lucy returns with drinks just as everyone migrates outside for the fireworks. One of the older, more adventurous married couples had found a box down in their basement - they'd had the bright idea to test them out for New Year's Eve. But they work. The air smells of sulfur, but it's pretty nonetheless.

Since it’s around midnight, a few of the couples, Tommy and Maria included, share a quick kiss for good luck in the incoming year. Lucy gets one on the cheek from Maria and Tommy - just a friendly peck. Even Ellie gets a kiss on the cheek from one of her friends.

Joel watches the fireworks fade in the sky, leaving puffs of discolored smoke in the air. He doesn't expect a kiss, but Lucy tugs on Joel's jacket sleeve and gets him to bend down. She stands on her tiptoes, hand braced against his shoulder, and kisses his cheek.

"For good luck," she says, and it's soft and a little sweet. "Happy New Year, Joel."

It's not the kiss that confirms she's got him sunk - it's her voice, close to his ear so she can be heard over the fireworks and the cheering, clapping crowd.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I TOOK THE FUCKING BAR EXAM. Finally! And it was god-awful! But now I can stop complaining about it!
> 
> So, I have one less responsibility, and I go back to work full time next week. Which means, I have (slightly) more time to write. I opened up my request box over on tumblr (spaceclefairy), so leave me something if you like.
> 
> Next chapter will be out in the next couple of weeks. It's gonna get spicy!


	6. sheets of empty canvas, untouched sheets of clay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I edited this while drunk but hey, look, kisses!

** Day 15 - September 2035 - Cheyenne, Wyoming **

A hand covered Lucy’s mouth, dragging her into unwilling consciousness from a dead sleep.

Lucy twitched, startled in the cold and dark of the night. Her immediate thought was to bite down. Bite down and draw blood, bite down and tear. Bite down, kick, scratch. The adrenalized spike of survival instincts dictated fight or flight, a spear shoved straight through her nerves. Fight. _Run_. Whatever was necessary to get away.

But it was Joel. Lucy could tell by the calluses on his fingers and the dark, almost spicy scent of him. The scent that made him _Joel_ was hard to find under the reek of dirt and fear that clung to both of them, but it was there, soft and warm in the dark. If it hadn’t been Joel’s hand covering her mouth, she’d have sunk her teeth into the flesh and spit out the bone as she ran.

Joel shushed her softly and removed his hand, leaving her face cold. One arm was still wrapped around her from where she’d slept on his shoulder for most of the night - the other had been covering her mouth. It had to be well past her time to take watch - he’d let her just keep sleeping.

She turned towards him, just barely able to see him in the light from the fire. Something had to be wrong. Something _must_ be wrong if he’s waking her with a hand over her mouth - he'd needed to keep her from calling out or asking if it was her turn for watch.

Joel traced something into her shoulder through her jacket. It was part of their system for when they needed to stay quiet - the system they'd been taught to use on patrols like this. The system they used when one could see something the other couldn’t.

 _C_. Clicker.

Two taps on her shoulder. Two clickers?

Two clickers in the camp.

Lucy nodded, just the barest indication of understanding.

Joel kept his hand on her shoulder. He pointed off to the left at the edge of the camp with his free hand, then pointed closer to the right side where the horses were. Sure enough, now that her eyes had adjusted to the firelight and she was listening out for it, she could just barely make out the presence of two infected, twitching and lurching and fucking _clicking_ right on the edges of the camp.

He tapped her shoulder and pointed off to the right side. _You take that one_.

Joel’s machete rested next to Lucy’s crowbar at the mouth of the tarp. They each grabbed their respective weapons and crept into position before slinking out into the cold night.

The snow crunched delicately under Lucy’s feet as she crept towards the clicker. Owls hooted in the blackness, and the horses huffed and stood motionless as if they could sense they needed to keep silent. Wind whistled through the trees around the camp, creating a deafening silence despite the waffling white noise.

Likewise, Joel inched along through the snow in the opposite direction. His steps were more deliberate, more well-placed - his weight made it difficult to keep the crunching to a minimum, so he had to step more carefully. The whistling wind served to mask the sound, though, and he reached his mark first, lopping the infected’s head off in one smooth stroke. The body fell to the ground motionless, spurting thick, gelatinous blood interspersed with fungal matter from the rampant infection.

The sound of the clicker’s body dropping alerted the second clicker. It screeched in the dead air, breaking the careful, waffling silence. Lucy swung her crowbar and landed two clean hits on her mark’s skull before it could start flailing and hunting, crushing its head into mush. She wiped the black, rust-smelling jelly on what remained of the clicker’s human clothes.

Joel appeared at her shoulder. His voice was hardly more than a whisper. “We need to get out of here before more show up.”

“You get the tarp,” Lucy replied, “I’ll saddle up the horses.”

“Done.”

They rode off just as the sun began to rise, as the sound of lurching, hunting footsteps began to echo through the trees, snapping on twigs and crunching snow over the whistling wind, en masse.

* * *

** Day 23 - September 2035 - U.S. 191 **

The influx of snow brought with it a major wrench in the timing of their trip. It blanketed everything within a few days of the first snowfall, and though it slacked off a little the closer they got back to Jackson, it was still coming down in heavy inches. The trees around them were laden with ice, and it dripped onto the horses and into their eyes and hair with every gust of wind.

With the snow coming down steadily, they’d made it a habit to ride longer and farther every day, which served to put them ahead of schedule. The horses had begun to resent them for it, but it had to be done if they were going to get back to Jackson before the snow became unbearable, or worse, _dangerous_. Shelter was lacking, and the fewer days they had to spend huddled together up under a tarp next to a fire, surrounded by the punishing ice and snow, the better off they would be. Though they’d managed to find shelter out of the elements a few nights since they’d left Cheyenne, but it was mostly bereft lean-to's that were hardly more effective than the tarp.

At least they were back on a path Joel knew. It was one of the longer routes used to keep the area cleared of infected and wandering hunters before they could get close to Jackson.

They were only a few days from Jackson now and about half a day from the second watchpost. If the poor horses (and their riders) weren't dead tired, Joel would take a chance on making it to the second watchpost that night. But, it seemed, the weather had different plans for them. The snow was picking up as the sun was starting to slip down past the trees - they needed to get to shelter soon or they'd be starting a fire out in the snow.

Luckily, Joel had an idea as to where they could find shelter. There was a cabin close by; he'd seen it before on this route, but he’d never ventured in. There was no reason to clear it out since the second watchpost was technically on this route. The times he'd been through this route, he’d always been able to return to the watchpost. But the cabin would serve them well enough tonight.

Joel nudged Chestnut to trot up to Lucy, prompting the horse to shake its massive head in irritation. The poor horse was almost too tired to keep pace with its workhorse counterpart, though Linnea was obviously worn down as well.

"The watchpost is still half a day away," Joel said, keeping pace alongside Lucy. "But there should be a lean-to about a mile from here."

"Whatever we do, we gotta get these horses out of the snow or we’ll be walking back to Jackson," Lucy replied, reaching down to pat Linnea's neck. "You want to take the lead from here?"

Joel nodded. "Yes, ma'am."

They trudged on until the sun finally dipped down past the trees, the barest strains of light struggling to find purchase through the leaves and pine needles. Ice crunched under the horses' hooves, the layers of snow having begun to compact into that hard permafrost layer on top of the dirt. The horses were absolutely fed up with them and cantered slower and slower with each passing minute.

Finally, they found the cabin.

Well, it was really more of a shack than a cabin. It was small and squat, couldn't be more than three rooms. The outside was dingy, and the siding and planking were crusted with age, but it otherwise appeared to have been well-preserved - at least more so than anywhere else they'd taken shelter over the past few days. The structure was almost entirely intact, and while it seemed to be deserted, the state of it would suggest it hadn’t been deserted for long. It looked lonely, almost haunted, squatting out in the clearing among the icy trees.

Joel climbed down off of Chestnut followed closely by Lucy. He trudged up the porch steps, treading carefully in case the wood was rotten, and shined his flashlight into the dark, dusty windows. “Looks empty.”

“Let’s look around and make sure.”

“If it’s clear, I’ll come back out and take care of the horses for the night.”

“I’ll get a fire going.”

Lucy stayed close on his heels as he pried the door open. The inside was larger than the outside suggested, but it was nevertheless cramped and neat. The surfaces in each room were covered in a thick layer of dust, but there was nothing to show anyone had come through to disturb the dust.

On one hand, it was sad to see such a nice little place forgotten to the elements. It simply wouldn't do to dwell on that, though, sad though it may be. The important thing was that were no infected or people, and it didn’t seem like anyone would be returning.

The front room was home to a fireplace and a matching couch and chair set - it would have been cute if not for the fact that it was threadbare and abandoned. A few pictures hung on the walls, so faded and gray that neither Lucy nor Joel could tell what they were.

The kitchen was relatively empty. There was a defunct gas stove and refrigerator, but nothing more useful than a few spoons and plates and the odd miscellaneous utensil. Whoever had abandoned this place cleared it out before they left.

After they determined that nothing living or infected called the cabin home, Joel left to go tend to the horses.

Lucy stood in the doorway of the back bedroom. She called to his retreating back, "I'm gonna check around for more supplies and get a fire going."

The small back bedroom was no different than the other rooms - dusty and dark. A few pictures decorated the wall, the glass so thickly obscured that Lucy couldn’t make heads or tails of what the pictures depicted. The bookshelf held a few books - a tattered old Bible abandoned on the shelf by its owner and some field manuals. The bed was neatly made like whoever slept there knew they wouldn’t be returning.

Next to the bed was a nightstand. It matched the little bookshelf like it, too, had come as part of a set. It was just a simple wooden thing; parts of the woodgrain had been roughed up to give it character. Oddly enough, it was the one piece of the room that seemed to whisper _me me me pick me_.

Upon opening the top drawer of the nightstand, Lucy found a dogtag shoved into one corner amidst old papers and empty pens. Said dogtag was inscribed with a name on one side and a Firefly symbol on the other like every Firefly dogtag.

 _Gideon Johns_ , followed by a serial number.

She turned the metal chain over in her hand, watching it glitter and wink in the light from her flashlight. She recognized the name, assuming it was the Gideon she'd known. He’d left Atlanta to join the Fireflies all those years ago, headed for Salt Lake City - it's where they'd heard the Fireflies were researching a cure for the infection.

Lucy put the dogtag back in the drawer and shut it with a click. She knew a thing or two about Fireflies and cures - neither of which she cared to reminisce upon.

Time to get a fire going.

She considered the mattress. It’d be easy to drag it out in front of the fireplace – it would give them way more room to stretch out. Might even get a comfortable night's sleep for the first time in a month.

Ha, _sleep_. The only reason either one of them had slept since Cheyenne was by sheer function of biology. Once the body finally gives out, you finally just knock out for the night. And it wasn’t a restful sleep. No, it was a sleep plagued by horror movie jump scares and the by-product of zero-to-sixty panic.

But, just maybe, if she made it cozy enough, they’d be able to rest for a night.

Joel returned from tending the horses just as Lucy finishing stoking the fire. He shook the snow out of his hair before it could melt in the newfound heat of the cabin and shucked his jacket off. He'd managed to coax the horses into a lean-to behind the shack to keep them out of the elements, though both horses were clearly disgruntled with having to move even a step further. He couldn’t blame them there; he was dragging his feet, too.

Joel planted himself onto the couch next to Lucy to settle in for the night, handing her one of the ration packets from their backpacks. She sat watching the fire, the logs cracking and burning in the heat. The warmth from the fire staved off the chill, and they had a soft place to rest for the first time in weeks.

“A Firefly lived here,” Lucy said softly, the foil packet in her hand crinkling lightly as she opened it. “I found a dogtag in the back bedroom.”

Maybe it was someone running from what Joel had done in Salt Lake City.

“Salt Lake City’s not too far. Must’ve defected.”

“Can’t blame them there,” Lucy responded. “I was never much for the Fireflies myself.”

"Me either."

Lucy looked at him, considering the shadows that danced over his face in the firelight. His somber hazel eyes were almost amber in the glow from the fire. “I recognized the name. One of my friends from Atlanta ran off to join the Fireflies. That’s where they were heading.”

“I guess they found it.”

“Sucks for them,” Lucy replied, crinkling up her packet. She shook her head, almost imperceptibly. "He really wanted to find a cure..."

There it was again - that soft little mention of cures and Fireflies.

Lucy picked at her rations. This time, even more softly, she said, "It’s not possible."

Joel wanted to ask her why, he really did. He had a feeling she'd avoid the question if he asked. "Did he think they could find one?"

"We've all thought that at one time or another, I think," Lucy said, starting like she'd had to break herself away from some train of thought. "Anyway, how far are we away from Jackson now?"

"About three days."

"Almost home," Lucy grinned, nudging his shoulder. "I think we did pretty well, all things considered."

"Only a couple of near-death experiences," he agreed. A few too many, in fact.

"Just another notch in the apocalyptic bedpost, really.”

Bedposts. That’s the last thing he needed to be thinking about if they were going to sleep in the same room, apocalyptic or not.

Or the dreaded L-word.

It had been eating at him since they left Cheyenne, gnawing at his brain. It was time to do something about this, and that was simply the bottom line. Problem was, he didn’t know how – he’d never been good at talking about his feelings. Maybe he could show her how he felt?

And that's when it hit him.

The music store wasn't far from the cabin if he remembered correctly. That would be a good place, dusty and dingy as it may be. Music was how they’d connected in the first place - how they’d come to be friends separate from just Tommy’s brother or Maria’s friend. She'd love it.

Hopefully.

What a fuckin' revelation, that. Almost fifty years old, and he still wasn't good at this.

Joel opened his mouth before the frustrating _fear_ choked him. “You remember that music store I told you about?”

Lucy glanced over at him. “Yeah, why?”

“It’s not too far from here if you want to stop by?” Joel said, the words tumbling out of his mouth. Why was he nervous? He was too fucking old to be _nervous_. “It’ll put us behind by half a day, but if we detour through here, it’s only about two day’s ride. We’d be back at the first watchpost outside of Jackson the same day.”

She smiled, curling her pink lips up almost mischievously. That smile makes his breath catch in his chest. “Half a day is fine with me.”

“Means we won’t be camping out at the second watchpost, but there’s more shelter down that way anyway.”

"Sounds like a plan," Lucy said. She yawned and stretched, worn out from the day's ride. "I'm beat. I’ll take the couch if you want the mattress?”

Joel shook his head. “No, I’ll take the couch. You get some sleep.”

“How about you take the mattress when it’s my turn for watch?”

“Deal.”

Lucy climbed down from the couch and curled up under the mountain of blankets and pillows she'd found. Once she'd gotten comfortable, all Joel could see of her was the curly orange bun on top of her head poking out from under the blankets.

She'd been down there no more than half an hour when she peeked up over the edge of the blanket. "Joel?"

He'd been fighting sleep. "Hmm?"

"The fire's not quite cutting it."

It took him a second before he realized, _oh_ , she wanted him to come down there. He climbed down and wormed his way under one of the blankets, sitting up with his back resting against the cabin wall so he wouldn't be tempted to fall asleep. With her back pressed to his leg, she finally fell asleep.

* * *

** Day 26 - September 2035 - U.S. 191 **

The sky overhead was nearly black, the clouds ready to dump piles of snow. The snowfall had slacked off for most of the morning, but the deluge was coming, and it wouldn’t be long until the dark clouds overhead let loose.

"You reckon Maria is shitting bricks about the snow yet?" Lucy asked, glancing upward worriedly. "Or she's sent people out to check on us?"

Joel could just barely make out the music store off in the distance. "We'll be home tomorrow, so maybe she'll hold off on sending people out long enough for us to get there."

"I hope so," Lucy replied. "The fewer people out in this weather, the better."

The ground crunched underneath the horses' feet as they approached the store, the grass and soil hardened by frost. Like everything else in the deserted town, it was covered by a heavy dusting of snow. Ice crept over the glass windows in a thick layer of crystals.

As they climbed down off of the horses, Joel felt the slightest twinge of discomfort down in his gut. Bad nerves, his dad used to say. Lucy would love this place, he wagered, but that didn't quell the apprehension in his gut. Maybe she wouldn't. Maybe she didn't feel the same way about him. (How come he'd never learned to just _talk about it_? He should really learn.)

Lucy walked into the building behind Joel, the doors clanking shut behind her. She stepped past him and just stared. "Holy shit, Joel."

The inside of the store was covered in a thick film of dust, much like every other abandoned building they'd encountered. Stacks of CD’s resided on every shelf, and the vinyl albums were still tacked up to the wall behind the counter. The walls were still covered with posters and advertisements from twenty-odd years ago. (Joel had almost taken the Pearl Jam one home with him last time - he didn't think he could resist the temptation this time.)

Lucy began rifling through the first stack of CD’s before he could even take another step. “Look at all this stuff!”

A kid in a candy store.

Joel grinned and folded his hands behind his head. He’d been through a few of the stacks already and taken what he liked back to the station. “Have fun.”

She removed two CD's from the first stack and shoved them into her backpack. “I can’t believe you haven’t shown me this place before now!”

While she worked through the next stack, he tentatively, gently, started peeling one of the posters down from the wall. He'd make a frame for it or something and take it down to the radio station.

Almost absently, Joel replied, “Well, you know, Tommy doesn’t schedule you for the long patrols.”

“Right. Can’t be away from the power plant or the hospital for too long. Gotta keep everything working...”

The way her voice dropped made Joel glance over away from the wall. He figured he’d struck a nerve, however unintentionally. “Lou, that ain’t it…”

That was exactly it, even if Joel didn't want to admit it. Neither Tommy nor Maria wanted her taking chances out on the long patrols. The half-day and overnight patrols were one thing, but they'd never send her out on the longer ones like this route - not even with Joel.

“Well, it’s part of it,” Lucy replied, digging through the next stack. She didn't look up at him, just concentrated on one stack after the next.

"He’s just concerned," Joel replied gently.

“I know… Guess I did show up on my deathbed,” Lucy said, shuffling through a stack. "You know, I never even told them who was in that hospital."

Joel rolled up the poster carefully and left it on the front shelf next to the door so he wouldn't forget it on the way out. "So, they don't know anything?"

"Bits and pieces, but not everything. Maria knows I…" she trailed off, touching her stomach absentmindedly. "Well, they both know people kept me there, but not who or what happened."

Joel walked over to the row where she was picking apart the stacks of CD's. "Good to know."

"Trying to figure out how to keep the story straight?" Lucy asked, doing her best lighten the mood. Trying to change the subject – at least she wasn’t running out the door.

He grinned, just a small, soft curve of his mouth. He wouldn’t tell unless she wanted him to. "Yes, ma'am."

They went back to searching the stacks of CD’s. It was fun, seeing her so enthusiastic. Joel hadn’t seen her smile like this in a long time. After she'd filled up her own backpack, she’d hand him one occasionally to stow in his bag or grin when she looked up and caught him staring.

It was nice, that little bit of comfort. It was hard to fight the swell of pride in his chest every time she handed him another CD, or made a comment about the one she was holding, or asked him what he thought about it. He felt ten feet tall, glad that she was having fun.

Lucy pulled a CD from the stack and held it up. “Now, tell me why you didn’t bring me this?”

She held up a copy of Nirvana’s _Bleach_. She's a fan, but Joel knew that.

“Must’ve missed it last time I was here,” Joel chuckled, taking the CD from her so he could stow it in his bag. “It’s a good one.”

“I got in so much trouble playing this growing up,” Lucy said, turning back to the stack. “According to my parents, it’s depressing.”

“I never noticed,” he teased.

"I used to wait until they went to bed, then I'd sneak downstairs and use my brother's stereo. Could barely turn the sound on, of course, but it sounded amazing anyway."

She moved on to the next stack, still chattering away while Joel looked around for anything he hadn't found the last time he'd been there. Maybe he should check the back of the store for a CD player - there had to be one that still worked somewhere around here. He could really use one back at home.

“Oh, look here,” Lucy sang and held up another CD. “Scandalous!”

It was an old Al Green CD, one of many in a stack cleverly labeled by a poster that said _Let’s Get It On_ with Marvin Gaye’s face behind it. Must have been a promotional campaign back in the day, if the multitudinous stacks of R&B were any indication.

“Please tell me you’re not taking that one back with us,” Joel said, shaking his head. He took the CD from her when she passed it to him.

“And why shouldn’t I?” Lucy clasped her hand over her chest, mockingly appalled. “Do you not like Al Green?”

He couldn’t help the smile on his face. “I didn’t say that.”

“So, you _do_?” Lucy asked, apparently quite amused by her discovery.

He could feel the back of his neck heating up. “I didn’t say that either.”

She poked his side and handed him a stack of the R&B CD's to take with them, Al Green's purposefully taking the top of the stack. “Then why’s your face red?”

“You can’t even see my face,” Joel countered. “There’s too much beard in the way.”

His beard had gotten annoyingly unruly in the past month - his hair, too. He planned to do something about that as soon as they got back to Jackson. Maybe she didn’t mind.

“I can see enough of your face to know it’s red,” Lucy snickered. “ _Joel Miller_ likes Al Green. Well, I’ll be.”

He rolled his eyes, plainly enjoying the attention. “Yeah, yeah.”

Lucy was clearly having a grand old time with this, and Joel couldn’t blame her (R&B is awesome, okay?). Most of their respective generations had been conceived to that particular stack of CD's. She kept right on his case. “How about Barry White? A little Marvin Gaye? Sade?”

“I’m not answering you.”

“Come on, kitten, I won’t tell,” she winked, laughing. “I’ll just keep that little bit of info in my back pocket for later.”

Joel finally looked up at her, having kept his face down to avoid her teasing. He caught her gaze, glancing over from underneath his eyelashes. She wants to tease? He can play that game. “Now, why would you want to do that?”

Lucy raised an eyebrow at him, the smile on her face widening for just a second. “Well… If I decide to do an R&B set, I’ll know you’re listening.”

His voice was quiet when he answered. “I listen to every set you play.”

She stood at his elbow, less than an inch from him. The sleeve of her jacket brushed his every time she moved. “Well, that’s good to know.”

"Besides, you like it, too," Joel replied. "You gave me most of that stack to take back with us."

"So, what if I do like it?"

She was close enough for Joel to easily close the gap between them. Just bend down a little, and she’d be right there. He could just press his lips to hers, and they could figure it out from there. She looked like she wanted him to, like she was waiting for it. She glanced down to his mouth, her whole body angled towards him.

He swallowed and hoped she didn't hear it. Nerves. Bad nerves, right there in the pit of his stomach. With her pink, pink lips, and the heat radiating off of her, and her gray eyes watching his mouth - he can't even concentrate. Oh, he loves her.

He closed the gap between them, lips just barely brushing hers.

The first kiss was just that - soft and quick, just the barest brush of skin on skin, hardly more than a tentative _let's see what happens now_. Her lips were warm, a little chapped - a perfect match to his windburned mouth.

Lucy barely pulled away, just enough to take a breath and grin. "Trying to shut me up about Al Green?"

Joel leaned back in to press a second kiss to her lips, this one just as fleeting. He smirked against her mouth. "Yeah."

The third kiss was not soft or fleeting or quick. It was nowhere near tentative. Joel wrapped his hand around the back of her neck, holding her close. She clutched at his chest, tugging him down to her level by his jacket. She worked her way between him and the shelf and let him pin her there.

Every inch of him positively _ached_. Sheer need - that’s what he felt. The need to draw her in and keep her close to his chest. _Need_ , and the desire to never let her go.

Lucy broke away, breathless. "Was this your idea of a date?"

"I know it's not the most romantic place…" Joel teased and brushed her nose with his. "But I thought you'd like it."

"I do," Lucy responded, wrapping her arms around his neck. She kissed the side of his mouth, just a light peck, voice dangerously sweet next to his ear. "Besides, we'll be back in Jackson tomorrow. Romance can come later."

He was very, _very_ aware that she'd let him pin her to the shelf, and that she hadn't moved.

"That a promise?"

"Oh, you better believe it," she said, pressing another kiss to his lips. Her hands found his face, making sure he couldn’t turn away from her. "What kept you?"

"I…"

_Don't know how to talk about my feelings._

_Didn't think you felt the same way._

_Thought I'd lose you._

Joel didn't finish that thought, but the look on his face must have told her all she needed to know.

Lucy nodded. "I get it."

Joel glanced out the window at the dark sky and the snow flurries drifting down past the window. “I think we’d better get to the watchpost.”

"I think you're right.

Joel started to lean down again for just one more kiss before they left, but as he started to close the gap between them, the back-store window exploded in a hail of shattered glass.

They both hit the floor, ducking down behind the shelves laden with CD's. Joel hazarded a look around the corner of the shelf and found they were very much not alone.

Two hunters lurched through the opening in the window, treading gingerly on broken glass.

"It's just a fucking music store," one of them growled. "You said there'd be food."

"I said there might be food."

"Well, there's no fucking food here. We walked all this way for nothi-"

"Stop whining and start looking."

No time to creep around and take them down silently. They drew their pistols, popped up from behind the shelves, and fired.

Both bandits hit the floor, one dead on impact and one well on his way. Lucy made quick work of him with her crowbar, unwilling to waste another bullet and attract more attention.

Joel ushered her to the front door with his hand on her elbow. "There might be more-"

"Right behind you."

* * *

** January 2035 – Jackson, Wyoming **

Friday nights are when Lucy plays host to everyone for dinner.

It’s been a tradition for years now. Tommy and Maria show up on Friday nights, and they bring people with them, and Lucy cooks. No one goes home until two or three a.m. – they drink and snack for half the night and play cards or some of the old board games Lucy’s collected over the years.

Since Joel and Ellie arrived in Jackson, Tommy and Maria have been dragging them along to dinner. Occasionally someone else will tag along for the night, usually one of Ellie's friends. People stop by to check in or grab whatever Lucy's cooked, but for the past few months, dinner has been for the five of them.

Ellie’s been there for a while already, having walked right over after farming patrols with the other teenagers. She’s playing cards at the dining room table while Lucy makes dinner - just a round of solitaire while she waits for Lucy to sit down. She’s been doing this more often lately, coming by to talk or sit down for dinner regardless of who’s there.

Lucy's mission since Ellie arrived has been to get her to open back up. She seems to get along well enough with the other teenagers, but Joel says she wasn't taciturn like this before Salt Lake City. Trauma will do that. Though Joel won't tell them why, the haunted look in Ellie's eyes tells Lucy more than enough.

Lucy leans over the old gas stove, prodding the chicken in the pot so that it won't stick to the bottom. “How was farming duty?”

Ellie shrugs. “Same as always. Pulling up weeds isn’t exactly exciting.”

Lucy chuckles. “No, I suppose not.”

Ellie’s gotten better overall - more like her old self - but she's been moody and sullen for the past week. Just a teenager being a teenager. Lucy gets it. Being a teenager is hard, especially after what Ellie’s been through. She’s got a right to be moody and sullen. She'll brighten up as the evening progresses, though - once she'd got some food in her stomach.

“I don’t know why I can’t go out on regular patrols," Ellie fusses. "It’s not like I don’t know how to use a gun.”

"Them's the rules, I'm afraid," Lucy replies. She scoops out some of the beans she's been simmering for most of the day and passes the spoon to Ellie for a taste test. “Don’t worry - once they start scheduling you for regular patrols, you’ll be wishing they’d stop.”

“Easy for you to say.” Ellie fans her mouth because she didn't bother to let the beans cool before scarfing them down. "Needs more salt."

Lucy adds more salt, as the child demands.

“You’re not wrong,” Lucy replies. “Hell, I wish they’d schedule me for more patrols so I wouldn’t have to go down to the power plant so much.”

Ellie smirks at her slyly, “Patrols with Joel?”

Oh, look, the moody teenager's cheering up.

Lucy rolls her eyes. “Don’t tell me Tommy’s got you on this, too.”

Ellie’s snarky little grin is adorable. “You kissed him at the New Year’s party. Everyone saw it.”

“On the cheek,” Lucy huffs. “Or so I’m told. I don’t exactly remember...”

The whole night is a blur thanks to moonshine, an old bottle of Tanqueray, and blatant disregard for biological limitations.

“I’ve never seen you like that before,” Ellie snickers.

Lucy laughs. “And you never will again. I have learned my lesson.”

Ellie smiles and gets quiet again, brows furrowed while she stares at the game of solitaire in front of her. Lucy can see at least three pairs to be made, but Ellie doesn’t make a move. It takes a minute before Lucy realizes that Ellie’s just staring at the table.

Lucy checks the food on the stove before she sits down at the table in front of Ellie. “Something on your mind, darlin’?”

Ellie picks up one of the pairs and matches it up to its other half. Her moves are slow, like she’s trying to make herself think about it. Finally, she looks up.

“Have you ever been married, Lou?”

It’s an interesting question. Lucy has an idea about what might have prompted it, but she'll see if Ellie will tell her before she says anything.

“Once, a long time ago,” Lucy says, raising an eyebrow. “Why?”

“Uh, no reason." Ellie looks back down at the table. "Just curious.”

There’s a pause before Lucy smiles slyly. Ellie's not going to offer the information, but Lucy already knows. “Is this about you and Cat?”

She looks up like a deer in headlights. “I, uh- How do you know about that?”

“I supervised Cat and Dina on farming patrol a few days ago," Lucy says, reaching over to match up the few pairs that Ellie just keeps ignoring. "Dina gave her quite an earful."

“Oh.” It's the softest little sound. Ellie just starts playing with the cards, not bothering to continue on with her game. “Did you tell Joel?”

“No, honey, it's not my place to tell him," Lucy says gently, trying to ease the girl's concern. "And he hasn’t mentioned it.”

“Okay," she nods. "Good.”

“Do you feel like you can’t talk to him about it?”

“I know I can,” Ellie says, and Lucy’s sure she’s being truthful. “I know he’d listen if I did. It’s just... it's easier to talk to you about stuff like this.”

“I get that,” Lucy replies. “Well, you know you can always talk to me.”

Ellie nods and breathes a shaky sigh. Not for the first time that evening, Lucy catches her tugging at her shirt sleeve. Ellie's wearing the kind of shirt with sleeves that stop below the elbow, and they're not quite long enough to cover the mark on her arm.

Lucy knows what it is. Maybe, since she's gotten Ellie to open up a little, she'll confirm it.

“Ellie?” Lucy asks. She's gotten back up to check on the food so she's not crowding Ellie's space when she asks. “What’s that mark on your arm?”

The look of shock on Ellie’s face confirms what Lucy’s been thinking for months. It's the look of someone who doesn't know how to respond, or maybe got caught off-guard.

“It’s, um, well - I got burned pretty bad back in Boston.”

Lucy hums like she's thinking. “Kind of a weird pattern.”

Ellie's responding voice is an octave higher than normal. “Yeah, definitely.”

And that’s the end of Lucy’s questions, but that’s all she needs to know. This little girl has a bite mark on her arm, she was brought back from Salt Lake City, neither she nor Joel will answer a straight question about it.

Fireflies, man. Still up to the same old shit.

Before the silence between them can get awkward, Lucy catches Tommy’s blonde head floating past the kitchen window followed shortly thereafter by Maria’s even blonder head. They’re laughing, teasing each other like they do when they think no one’s listening. They don’t even knock before barging in the front door.

Joel slinks in right behind them, shutting the door quietly. He takes his usual place at the table next to Ellie and starts messing with her about the cards, glancing up every now and then to where Lucy stands at the stove. He's been standoffish since the New Year's party (since she kissed him, which she doesn't remember doing). He shows up to dinner like usual, still sits on her porch for half the night, stops by the radio station sometimes - but he's definitely put up more of a guard.

Lucy won't try to guess what's going on in his head, but she has a feeling it's not too far off base from what's going on in hers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all, it's 'bout to get SPICY up in here. Enjoy, kids.


	7. forty days and forty nights, and it's still coming down on me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Is that a pistol in your pocket or are you just happy to see me? (Hint: it's a pistol.)

** Day 26 - September 2035 - U.S. 191 **

Gunfire exploded in the distance behind the music store, the bullets landing far from their marks. The shots echoed through the trees and around the buildings in a cacophony of confusion that made it impossible to pinpoint a specific source. Glass shattered in the wake of a few of the errant bullets while the rest kicked up ice and dirt on the ground behind the store.

Lucy couldn't see where the shots were coming from, only heard the gunfire roar in the distance. There would be no way to tell how many more hunters were hiding off in the trees with the continuous drone of gunfire. She craned her head around the side of the building to see if any of the hunters were brave enough to come forward, but none appeared. 

Joel pulled her along, one hand on her elbow, and kept her covered from the direction of the gunfire. "Get to the horses!"

She ran, not daring to look back. Joel stayed right on her heels, gun trained at the ready behind them. She pulled him along by the back of his jacket, guiding him so that he wouldn’t have to turn around.

The horses, while trained to stay calm despite gunfire, had clearly been spooked in the panic. They both reared and yanked at their bindings, snorting and whining as Lucy and Joel approached. Lucy grabbed hold of Linnea's reins and climbed on as Joel scrambled to calm Chestnut enough to climb into his saddle.

“Stubborn ass – _fuckin’ horse_ ,” Joel huffed, clambering up into the saddle. He tugged Chestnut’s reins, yelling, “Go!”

They took off, barreling down the decrepit town road as gunfire continued to echo through the trees. The more distance they could put between themselves and the town behind them, the better, so they galloped through the trees until they could no longer hear the sounds of gunfire. 

Lucy barreled along behind Joel, eyes trained on the back of his head. If they could get far enough away, they could stop and figure out the next move. For now, she kept an ear out for horses, or more gunfire, or – heaven forbid – the sound of a vehicle behind them (those were few and far-between, but some were still functional). 

Where had all those hunters come from? They hadn’t seen another living soul in weeks, neither in Cheyenne nor the area around Jackson. Not even a camp or an old fire. The hunters must have come up from the south and stumbled upon the deserted town – maybe they’d deviated from the path in search of food. 

Wherever they’d come from, there were a lot of hunters close to Jackson, and that was _bad_.

The next few hours would be rough going. The sky overhead was dark gray, and the clouds were inordinately heavy. Snow dropped in a howling flurry and it would only get heavier as the day wore on. The forest trees shielded them from the worst of the snow, but it wouldn’t last forever; not even the trees would offer protection if the snow got any heavier. A blizzard was rolling in, and it wouldn’t be long before the bottom dropped out.

After crashing through the snow for nearly two hours, the horses began to slow in protest of the punishing pace. The poor animals were already exhausted from the month of rigorous travel – this last stretch of road was another nail in the coffin. Finally, the horses stopped in a clearing of their own accord. The clearing was empty and seemed safe enough, but they kept on their toes while the horses rested.

Lucy tended to Linnea while they rested. She checked her over for injuries and gave her enough water to keep them going until they could stop again.

She called over her shoulder, “Can we make it home before dark, or should we take a chance at the watchpost?”

"Jackson isn’t much farther, maybe four hours away from here," Joel said, checking Chestnut top to bottom. Of all the people in Jackson who’d tried to ride him, the cantankerous old horse only liked Joel; the horse was cranky and contentious, but otherwise unhurt. "Besides, if those hunters find the watchpost with just the two of us in it, I don't think we'd make it out. We can make it home before dark if we keep up the pace."

"I don't know if the horses are gonna be able to handle that, Joel. They're more exhausted than we are."

Chestnut looked back at Joel like he agreed with Lucy.

"You're right," Joel conceded, feeding Chestnut another carrot. "But we've got to keep going. We can’t let that group get close to Jackson.”

“I’m good in mind to loop around and see if we can find where they’re camped,” Lucy said, more as a suggestion than a serious idea.

She left Linnea to rest and went to help Joel tend to Chestnut. Linnea would be fine in a few minutes – she was young and sturdy. Chestnut, on the other hand, was older and tended to be cranky. Even then, he tossed his head as Lucy approached, almost dismissive.

“We don’t know where they came from,” Joel replied. He stood more than a head taller than Lucy, watching idly as she checked over Chestnut. “We could end up walking into their camp.”

“Which would probably end badly for us,” Lucy admitted. “Can we get home before the bottom drops out on this blizzard?”

Joel glanced up at the sky and sighed. “I don’t know. We won’t be able to make many stops.”

Lucy nodded, patting Chestnut’s muscled neck. Surprisingly, the cranky horse didn’t seem to mind for once. “We’ll do what we have to do, then.”

They climbed back on the horses and took off, the sounds of the horses’ hooves crunching in the frozen air.

As they trudged on through the snow, Lucy stared ahead while Joel led them down the forested path. What a day it had turned out to be; she sighed a frosty puff that disappeared into the afternoon air. She woke up that morning thinking this would be a pleasant stop at the music shop Joel had been talking about for months. She hadn’t even considered the possibility that it might have been his attempt at something like a date.

It was kind of a funny idea, really – a _date_ twenty years after the apocalypse. Well, Joel’s idea of a date – which, to be fair, was easily the best date Lucy had ever been on, apocalypse or no. After a month alone in the woods together and nearly a year of uncomfortable ambiguity, it wasn’t like a _date_ was completely out-of-the-blue. It was just… Even still, it was unexpected.

It hadn’t registered that was his intent until he’d kissed her. (Frankly, it still hadn’t sunk in that he’d _kissed her_.) When she’d started messing with him, she didn’t think he’d actually do it. She’d figured that he’d tease her and close himself off like he always did.

Obviously, he’d thought about that before they’d ever reached the music store.

Had the group of hunters not appeared to interrupt the fun, they could’ve had an enjoyable night at the watchpost. Maybe they could have figured things out – figured out whatever this was going to be. Talked about it (that was a big _maybe_ considering Joel’s frustratingly bad habit of _not talking about things_ ). Maybe more kissing ( _his mouth was so soft_ ). Maybe _more_ than kissing (maybe scratch that itch that both of them had been dealing with for weeks).

Now, _that_ line of thought was almost enough to make her turn the damn horse around and go find the hunters’ camp.

There would be time for that later, though. Once they got back to Jackson and debriefed Maria on the trip and the hunters, they had all the time in the world to talk things out. Hopefully, with more kissing ( _his kisses were so nice and gentle_ ).

Whatever the rest of the day held, Lucy had a bad feeling they hadn’t seen the last of those hunters.

After four hours, Jackson was within range - the punishing, month-long trip was finally at an end. They’d gone the entire four hours without more than a handful of ten-minute breaks, meaning they were squirming in their saddles by the time they got close. As they approached, though, the sound of gunfire echoed rapid-fire through the trees. 

Lucy listened out for the sounds of more gunfire. "Oh, that can’t be good.”

Voices reverberated through the trees, yelling commands and warnings. The echo made it hard to pinpoint where the ruckus was coming from, but there was really only one direction it could be.

Joel coaxed his horse into a standstill. “It’s coming from in front of us.”

They spurred the horses on to run the final stretch – towards the gunshots. The echoing gunfire only got louder as the horses crashed through the icy underbrush. Yelled commands and scream of pain grew louder and louder as they approached, more intelligible with each step. The snow fell heavier with each step, and daylight began to fade.

What they found at the front gate was absolute chaos.

A group of hunters – likely part of the same group as that morning – had swarmed the front gate, only to be met by Jackson’s front guard. Part of the front guard aimed down the sights from the walkway at the top of the gate while the other part stood on the ground in the middle of a glorified mass brawl.

Most of the hunters wielded only knives and whatever handheld weapons they made or scrounged, making the mass brawl on the ground hardly more than a nasty knife fight. A few, though, carried guns – these hunters focused on the front guard on top of the wall; with a little finesse, they could be picked off from the behind.

Joel and Lucy hid the horses behind a dense thicket of trees and crouched down under cover, both holding the weapons they’d brought with them on their trip. 

Lucy loaded her shotgun. “Let’s see if we can’t pick off the marksmen. I’ll flank from the left.”

“Then I’ll take the right,” Joel replied, loading his rifle. “Meet at the gate?”

“Works for me,” Lucy said. She cocked the gun. “Let’s get this taken care of. We’ve got better things to do.”

Joel caught her elbow before she crawled off through the snowy underbrush. “Be careful, please.”

She kissed his cheek. “ _You_ be careful.”

Two hunters stood guard at the left edge of the forest, both wielding nasty-looking shotguns. They were thin and straggly – dirty and likely starving. They must have stumbled upon Jackson while searching for food and figured the town would be an easy target to raid. Bad choices all around.

Lucy crept around to the side, right behind the two hunters, careful to stay low in case an errant bullet tore through the trees. She lined the gun up so that both hunters were within her sights and took the shot, catching both hunters in the back. As with the hunters in the music store, one was dead on impact while the other one hung on. She finished off the job with her crowbar, unwilling to waste a second shot.

The shotgun blast alerted the rest of the group to the presence of others behind them, causing half of the group on the ground to whip around in search of the source of the shot.

One hunter brave enough to chance being shot crept over to where the two hunters lay dead on the ground. As he made his way over to where Lucy crouched in cover behind a tree, a shot rang out, catching the hunter in the back and giving away Joel’s position on the right side of the gate. She caught sight of Joel making his way around the edge of the crowd towards the front gate and followed his lead, crawling along the edge of the clearing to remain out of sight.

Emboldened by the distraction, the remaining faction of the front guard stormed out of the gate to meet the hunters in the clearing.

Among them was Tommy. He stood at the gate and waved Lucy towards him. She reached the gate and sidled along the outer wall, firing her shotgun whenever one of the hunters got too close.

Before Lucy could reach the gate, one of the hunters broke from the fighting group and caught sight of her. With her back angled away from him, he drew his pistol, aimed, and fired.

The first shot missed and slammed into the wooden gate, prompting Lucy to turn towards the source of the gunshot. The hunter fired again before Lucy could raise her shotgun up to her shoulder. 

For a second, Lucy thought the second shot missed, too. She raised her shotgun to her shoulder, aimed, and fired, catching the hunter full-on in the chest. The hunter hit the ground, the ice and dirt underneath him running red.

That’s when Lucy got the distinct feeling that her skin was on fire. Lucy brought her hand up to her right shoulder, and her fingers came away a dark red. Her ears rang, and she hit the ground right along with the hunter.

Joel watched her hit the ground and began shoving through the brawling group to get to the gate, using the butt of his rifle to crack skulls and push through. He stepped over discarded weapons and dropped bodies, kicking up dirt and snow as he broke through the crowd.

Joel knelt down in the snow next to where Lucy struggled to sit upright. Her right shoulder bloomed red, the fabric of her jacket shredded in that spot. He caught the flash of torn skin underneath the fabric.

He pressed a hand to the uninjured side of her back to keep her upright. “I need you to stay awake, alright?”

Lucy nodded, groaning. “Easier said than done.”

Tommy rushed out from the gate, gun held aloft, to meet Joel. He fired a shot towards the edge of the crowd – the resounding cry indicated the bullet found its mark. “How bad is it?”

“We gotta get her inside!”

Tommy yelled over the din of gunfire and fighting. “I’ll cover you!”

“Can you walk?” Joel asked. His face swam as she tried to keep her eyes open.

She nodded again and hissed when the movement pulled the muscle around the wound. “Gonna need some leverage.”

“Keep hold of me.”

He ducked up under her left arm so she could get a good grip around his neck and scooped her up out of the snow. His hand gripped her right side; he could feel blood seeping down into the fabric of her jacket, making it spongey under his touch.

Lucy trembled in his grip. “Dizzy.”

He half-dragged her over to the gate out of direct combat. “I know, baby, but we’re gonna get you to Doc.”

Tommy yanked open the gate and waited for Joel to drag her through the miniscule opening. Tommy slammed the gate behind them and caught her around her waist, careful to keep as far away from her shoulder as possible. From there, they half-dragged, half-carried her to the hospital.

Doc, luckily, was on standby and already attending to two guards who’d ended up more than worse for wear. The guards had been cut up and stabbed, but a pair of nurses hovered over them with needles and sutures ready to stitch them closed. Upon catching sight of the two men dragging a bloodied Lucy between them, Doc left the nurses to tend to the two guards and ordered Tommy and Joel to follow him into one of the backrooms.

Joel deposited Lucy in the nearest chair. She refused to let go of him.

Tommy gently pried her arm from around Joel’s neck. “You gotta let go, Lou.”

She looked up at him with feverish eyes and an ashen face. “I’d really rather not.”

Doc knelt down on the floor next to her. He waved at Joel. “Get her jacket off.”

Joel did as he was told, unzipping her jacket and easing it over her shoulder. The layers of clothes underneath the jacket were, too, soaked through with sticky, red-black blood. There was just enough of a hole in the fabric to see the jagged wound. With a few careful snips, Doc cut open her shirt sleeve to give himself room to work.

Doc ordered Joel and Tommy out the door despite Lucy’s dizzy protests. “I need a clean space. I’ll come get you when I’m done.”

Joel reluctantly stepped back towards the door, only convinced to leave by Tommy’s hand on his arm.

“Let’s get back to the gate,” Tommy said, tugging him out the door. “ _Joel_.”

Joel followed him out. “We found two more hunters at the music store in that town over on the long route.”

“I’ll send out a party tonight,” Tommy replied, checking his pistol as they drew closer to the gate. The gunfire had tapered off, and now remained only the sounds of fists connecting with flesh. “Why were you at the music store? That’s not on U.S. 191.”

“Took a detour.”

“That’s pretty out of the way for just a detour.”

“Kind of, yeah.”

Joel slipped through the gate, Tommy right behind him. There weren’t many hunters left to deal with, most of them either dead on the ground or long gone back into the woods. There were no casualties on their side – just a few injuries.

Tommy grabbed his arm. “You gonna tell me what happened out there?”

“Later,” Joel promised. “Let’s take care of this.”

* * *

** Day 26 - September 2035 - Jackson, Wyoming **

Once they’d dealt with the rest of the hunters, Joel retrieved both of the horses. Tommy tagged along behind him, leading Linnea back to the stables while Joel led Chestnut. After removing the bags of gathered supplies, they left the horses in the care of a couple teenagers tasked with tending the horses that night.

With the sun long extinguished beyond the horizon, the pair took all the gathered supplies to the intended destinations. Joel kept the bag from the music store with them as well as the medical bag; he'd take the former to the radio station in the morning and the latter to the hospital when they returned. Before that, though, they departed to deliver the dam parts down to the power plant. The plant was just far enough away to give him an opportunity to clear his head.

Tommy held on to the dam parts as they walked to give Joel some relief. "If there's anything you want to tell me while Maria's not here, you need to start talking. She'll be at the hospital by the time we get back."

Joel had promised to keep the events at Northside Medical between him and Lucy. He didn't intend to break that promise.

"Everything went fine."

"Then why'd you detour over to that town? That's way off of U.S. 191."

"Told Lucy I'd take her to that music store."

Tommy wasn’t going to let it go. "What happened out there, Joel?"

Finally, Joel sighed. He was exhausted, cranky, covered in blood that wasn't his own, ready to run back to the hospital. If he wanted Tommy to stop asking, he'd have to tell him something. So, he gave him the cleanest version he could - the same thing he'd give Maria when he had to debrief her. That they found the dam without a problem, that they got what she wanted from the hospital, and that they found shelter on the route when the snow started to get dangerous. He left out the hordes of infected and the fact they'd been sleeping next to each other for weeks now.

"So, we went to the music store. That's where we found the two hunters."

Tommy raised an eyebrow. "Did anything _happen_ at the music store?"

"Other than almost being ambushed?"

" _Yes_ , Joel."

Joel was more than aware of what Tommy wanted to know. He was kind of having fun telling Tommy everything but _that_. "I kissed her."

"Jesus Christ, _finally_. Now, how hard was that?"

"It ain't as easy as you say it is, and you know it."

Tommy clapped him on the shoulder. "But you did it. And I bet you feel better now."

"Yeah, yeah. Let's just get back to the hospital."

When Joel and Tommy returned to the hospital, they found Doc and Maria in the middle of what seemed to be a pretty nasty argument right in the middle of the lobby. Doc hovered between Maria and Lucy's hospital door. Despite being a tiny little thing - more than a head shorter than Maria - he held his ground well.

Joel handed off the pack of medical supplies to Doc in an effort to diffuse the argument coalescing between the two. Doc wouldn’t let them into Lucy’s hospital room, not even when Maria ordered him to let her in, which seemed to be the gist of the blowout fight.

It must have been nearly midnight, and Maria had been standing outside of the hospital room door for hours. She was clearly not pleased, if the dark flush on her face and the tight set of her mouth was any indication as to how she was feeling.

“I gave her something to knock her out.” Doc snapped. “You can come back tomorrow.”

Doc thanked Joel for the medical supplies and stormed off to see to the rest of the injured front guard, glaring at Maria with simmering anger. The little man had a terrible temper even on the best of days. Maria had a temper to match, though she usually kept it in better check.

When she caught sight of Tommy and Joel, she immediately homed in on Joel. “Well, what happened?”

“Went off without a hitch,” Joel lied smoothly. “Got the parts from the dam, checked out the hospital. We already took everything where it was supposed to go.”

“And you had no problems?” Maria asked, incredulous.

“None,” Joel said. “Not until we got to that town on the long route. That’s where we saw the hunters.”

“That’s a _major_ detour, Joel - I said Cheyenne and back,” Maria said, voice rising. She paused and took a deep breath. “I’m glad you found the hunters. It gives us a place to start looking for where they came from. Why did you go all the way over to that route?”

Tommy cut in, looking mightily pleased with himself. "He took her to that music store over in the town."

Maria looked up at him and resigned herself, almost defeated. There'd be no well-intentioned lecture tonight. "I guess you already told Tommy."

"He kissed her," Tommy announced, mightily pleased with himself despite the gravity of the situation.

"Not now, Tommy," Joel warned, though the threat was half-hearted. He was too tired to put any force behind it.

Maria was less inclined to tease him. “Well, Doc says she’s gonna be in here a while.”

Tommy peered over towards the door as if he thought he could see Lucy through the door's tiny, frosted window. “How bad is it?”

Maria crossed her arms; her knuckles were white where she clenched her hands. “She lost a lot of blood.”

"But she'll be okay?"

"Doc's gonna keep her here to make sure infection doesn't set in."

At that moment, the hospital doors flew open. Ellie barged in, pinked-faced and breathless and obviously distressed. Her hair was disheveled, mussed by cowlicks, and she was still in her pajamas.

“Joel?” she asked, striding over to him. “What’s going on? Jesse told me to go to the hospital.”

Joel’s voice sounded hollow even in his own ears. “Lucy got shot.”

The furrow between Ellie's eyebrows deepened. “Well, where is she?”

Ellie didn't wait for an answer; rather, she charged towards the hospital doors.

Joel grabbed at her and missed. "Hold on, now-"

Maria stopped her before she barged into the hospital room. “She’s fine - Doc said no entry.”

“She’s not fine! She got shot!”

“Ellie-”

The hospital room door opened behind them and Lucy stepped out, plodding over slowly, almost drunkenly. Her skin was ashen in the glow of the hospital lights, orange hair like a flame piled up on top of her head in sickly contrast. She'd been given a hospital gown at some point during the night so she wasn't covered in blood anymore, but it was so thin that she shivered in the cold night air.

Lucy held out the arm that wasn't immobilized. “Where’s my kid?”

Ellie threw her arms around her waist and latched on with a careful vice-grip.

“Everything's okay, darlin’,” Lucy said softly, pressing her nose into the girl’s wild hair. She swayed on her feet. “Just calm down.”

“You smell really bad,” Ellie mumbled, not moving away.

“Oh, I know,” Lucy laughed, a short, tired sound. She glanced up at Joel, who looked like he was about to do the same thing as Ellie, and over to Maria and Tommy. “Y’all look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“You almost were!” Maria snapped. She took Ellie's shoulders gently and tried unsuccessfully to loosen the girl's vice-grip. “I thought Doc gave you something to knock you out?”

Lucy shrugged the shoulder that wasn’t wrapped up. “I spit it out when he wasn’t looking. That stuff makes me feel like shit.”

Tommy ushered her back towards the door. “Go lay back down before you pass out. Why did you get out of bed?”

Lucy clutched onto Ellie for leverage as Tommy ushered them through the doors. She felt Joel's hand on the small of her back, which kept her from swaying.

“Oh, well, I heard the funeral party outside, but y’all weren’t coming in so I figured I’d save you the steps,” Lucy replied, shuffling along. “Probably still a bad idea.”

“A fuckin’ terrible idea,” Maria replied. She snap had drained from her voice. “Why do you have to be so stubborn?”

Lucy snorted, “I learned it from you, 'Ree.”

Lucy settled back on the bed, motioning for Ellie to scoot over to give her some room. Joel stood at the foot of the bed, hand still trained on the part of her back that wasn't tender like he was afraid she'd tip over.

Tommy shut the door behind them, careful to keep it down in case Doc was still milling around the hospital. “Well, what’d Doc tell you?”

Lucy leaned back into Joel's touch. “Small caliber bullet, missed the major veins and arteries. There’s no exit wound, so the bullet’s still in there. The guy hit me in the right shoulder, so it’s not near my heart. Thankfully, I’m left-handed, so I could still hold the gun and squeeze the trigger. Lost a lot of blood, but I’ll be fine with bedrest.”

Maria cut in. “What about Cheyenne?”

Lucy glanced over to Joel. “No problems.”

Maria obviously didn’t believe her, but she didn’t press the issue. Not yet, at least. She'd get the full run-down from Tommy tonight anyway. “Right. Well. You’re both alive, and you got what you went out to get.”

Lucy hummed. “That’s right.”

Tommy, for once acting as the middleman rather than the instigator, tried to slap a bandage on the thinly veiled argument threatening to bubble up to the surface between the two women. “We’re glad you’re home, and that you’re both okay.”

The ensuing silence was deafening. Maria seemed torn between giving the two of them an earful and grabbing Lucy in the same way Ellie had done. Tommy glanced over to Joel and found his older brother had a look on his face that belied the same urge. Joel returned the look, the hollows under his eyes casting shadows.

Finally, after a few minutes, Tommy caught Maria’s elbow. Clearly, something had passed between Tommy and Joel - the kind of voiceless conversation encapsulated by a _look_ that could only pass between brothers. "We're gonna go so you can rest."

Maria conceded, but warned, “We’re not done talking about this.”

Lucy grumbled. “Duly noted.”

As if on queue, Joel nodded to Ellie. “I think it’s time you head back to bed, kiddo.”

Ellie, being quick on the uptake, figured that something was up. She stifled a yawn. “Right. Yeah.”

Lucy gave Ellie’s shoulders a squeeze. “Go home and stay out of trouble.”

Maria and Tommy followed Ellie out, probably to make sure she actually went home. It was anyone's guess as to whether she would go back to bed or go track down Jesse and Dina.

Joel didn’t follow them. Instead, he sat on the edge of the hospital bed, teetering precariously on the corner, as if he wasn't quite sure if the bed would hold their combined weight. Or as if he wasn't quite sure whether she wanted him so close.

Lucy held out the arm she could still move. “I'm cold. Wanna help?”

Joel climbed up next to her and wrapped his arm around her, avoiding her right shoulder. He pulled the blankets up over her, careful not to cover himself. He was disgusting from the fight and weeks in the wilderness, but she didn't seem to care. “Tell me when you want me to leave.”

“Looks like you're staying, then,” Lucy said, smirking up at him. The hollows under her eyes were dark enough to pass for bruises. She leaned her head against his shoulder. “Ellie was right - we do smell really bad.”

“Yeah, we do,” Joel chuckled. “A month out in the wilderness will do that.”

Lucy sighed. “This is not what I was hoping tonight would look like.”

“No,” Joel replied softly. Maybe a little teasing would cheer her up. He nudged her side. “We’ll just have to make up for it later.”

She nudged him back. “Oh, I plan on it. Makin’ a list.”

“You have to make a list? I already had one…”

She laughed. “Don’t start - I can’t even move my arm.”

Joel would have happily stayed like that for the rest of the night, with her head on his chest and his arm around her. Under different circumstances, he would have suggested it. But, for the moment, he would stay until she fell asleep.

After a while, Joel said, “I should’ve said something sooner…”

"Stop," Lucy shook her head and squeezed his thigh. “I get it. Believe me, I do.”

He nodded, kissing her temple. They really did smell bad. “Go to sleep so we can get you out of here sooner.”

It didn't take long for Lucy to drift off once they'd lapsed into silence. Joel stayed until he could hardly keep his eyes open; at that point, he figured he needed to head out. The last thing he wanted to wake up to was Doc beating him over the head in the morning for staying overnight. He pressed a soft kiss to her forehead and slipped away, tugging the covers up over her so she wouldn't get cold.

* * *

** May 2035 – Jackson, Wyoming **

After months of being in Jackson, tonight is the first time Joel’s hosting dinner. Dinner has always been at Tommy’s or Lucy’s - that's just the way it was when he and Ellie showed up. The food at either place is always good, and he's happy to sit around on someone's porch until all hours of the night, but he figures it’s time he chips in.

It's been a long, long time since he's done any home cooking. Sure, he'll make something to take to Tommy's or Lucy's, but it's not usually food he had to actually turn on the electric stove to cook. He’s a pretty good cook, though, he thinks. At least, no one he’s ever cooked for has complained about it. (Well, Sarah did, but any kid would get tired of multiple consecutive days of late-night spaghetti.)

Joel still remembers some of the recipes his mom made all those years ago, so he's dug around in his brain to come up with dinner for the night. There's meat from the deer he and Tommy hunted a few weeks ago, kept in an ice chest to keep it fresh. Potatoes and beans Ellie brought him from the field patrol, flavored with butter Lucy figured out how to make. Carrots from his own tiny garden behind his house. It's going to be good.

Surprisingly, Lucy’s the first person to arrive. Doc’s been keeping her at the hospital so long at night lately that someone - usually Tommy - has to go retrieve her from down in the hospital morgue. But she’s here, which means he’s nervous. (He swears up and down he’s too old to be nervous, even if he knows that’s not true.)

It's finally warm enough to dress down in the evenings, so she's shown up in a faded green dress, hair piled up in its usual bun on top of her head. She looks so soft, that traitorous reptilian voice deep in his brain says. He tries not to stare and fails spectacularly.

While Joel returns to the kitchen to tend to the many pots on the stove, Lucy wanders around his living room. She’s looking at the pictures on his mantle - the ones that Tommy kept and gave back to him when he was finally willing to take them.

Joel’s not really one to share much about himself, so her scrutiny makes him antsy. He’s trying to be more open, though. He really is. And so far, he’s been successful. But it’s Lucy, so it’s somehow, in equal parts, both _not so bad_ and _worse_ at the same time.

And, you know, maybe if he didn’t want people looking at his pictures, he shouldn’t put them on his mantle.

Once he's sure all of the food on the stove is done and not in danger of boiling over, he wanders into his living room. He appears at Lucy's elbow to find she’s looking at a faded old photo of him and Tommy.

“Y’all were just babies.” Lucy returns the photo to the mantle and glances up at him. Not for the first time, Joel’s struck by how small he feels under her stare. “How old were you here?”

He clears his throat. “Tommy was 22. I was 25.”

“You look like you were having fun.”

Joel chuckles, “We were, uh, tailgating at a Longhorns game, I think.”

“Good times. I do miss football,” Lucy hummed. She picked up one of Joel and Tommy holding up motorcycles. “Didn’t take you for a biker.”

He takes the picture from her. His hair and beard are still black here, and Tommy's is short for once. “That was Tommy’s idea. He wanted to go on a cross-country road trip for his birthday that year.”

“Why am I not surprised?” Lucy snorts.

“Yeah, our parents weren’t real happy about it.” There’s a picture of them on the mantle, too. Joel picks it up and turns it over in his hands. They were young there, too, and Joel's reminded that he ended up the spitting image of his dad. “I think ma called us every hour on the hour.”

“They look like good people.”

“They were.”

She picks up the next picture – the one of him and Sarah at her soccer game. “This your daughter?”

“Yeah. Sarah.” Joel holds up the picture. He's still not good at talking about Sarah, but he's better about it than he used to be. “She, uh…”

He tapers off, and Lucy gets the hint.

“Tommy told me.” Lucy gently takes the picture from him. “He’s got a picture of the three of you, and I asked.”

“Right.” Joel clears his throat again and points. “That was the year before the outbreak. I think I was 27 here. Sarah would have been ten.”

“I knew you were young…” Lucy says, more to herself than Joel. “So, she played soccer?”

“Yeah, she was a pretty rambunctious kid. Had to do something to tire her out.”

He’s really, _really_ trying to do better, but it's still taxing to be open. He… well, he finds he doesn’t hate talking about Sarah. At least, he doesn’t hate talking about her like this. Lucy makes it easy.

“Looks like she was good at it. That’s a pretty big trophy.”

“Damn near bigger than her,” Joel says. He picks up the picture of Sarah with her friends. “I barely even remember these girls.”

“Oh, my dad never remembered my friends’ names, bless his heart. Except Maria, but our parents couldn't separate us from each other.”

“There were just too many of them. I tried, though.”

“I'm sure you did,” Lucy says, and looks at him with those _eyes_. She goes back to looking at all the pictures. “If I can ask - was there a Mrs. Miller?”

Ah. She's noticed the lack of any wedding photos or pictures of anyone who could possibly have been _Mrs. Miller_.

“There was. Briefly.”

Joel hasn’t thought about that in a long time. In fact, he's made it a point to avoid that topic even more so than the topic of Sarah. He pauses, but an explanation falls out of his mouth quicker than he can stop it.

“For about a year. We were young, and she, uh, wasn't interested in being a parent. I came home from work one night to the paperwork on the kitchen table and Sarah still in her crib.”

“Jesus, Joel. I’m so sorry.” Lucy had stopped scanning the pictures while he told his story. “I can’t believe someone would have done that to you…”

Joel doesn’t respond. He doesn’t know how. So, instead, he changes the subject. “I think dinner’s almost done if you want to come take a look?”

Lucy, again, gets the hint and follows him into the kitchen without another question.

As Joel pads through the house and back to the kitchen, he’s almost in disbelief he said as much as he did, especially about Sarah. He’ll call it an accomplishment – proof that he’s trying to loosen up and make Jackson work. He’s done a good job so far, he thinks. It helps that Lucy picked up on every single sore spot and treated it gently, moving on from subject to subject when she sensed he didn’t want to say anything else.

Lucy stands by the stove and peers into the pots one by one, grinning. “Smells good.”

Joel shrugs, caught somewhere between sheepish and proud. “I’ve never had any complaints.”

“And you’ll hear none from me.”

Joel could kiss her – he really, really could. The way she’s looking up at him, like she’s proud of him, like she’s pleased to be standing next to him – it makes heat creep up his chest, up the back of his neck.

The front door opens and slams back in the front room, making them both jump.

Ellie walks in, searching the kitchen like she expects food to be already out on the table. "What's for dinner?"

Joel rolls his eyes while Lucy snickers, but he tells her what’s for dinner anyway and ends with, "How about you set the table while we wait for Tommy and Maria?"

" _Fine_ ," Ellie replies in her very best teenager voice.

Joel could do this every night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've got a few days off for Thanksgiving, so I plan on posting another chapter next week.
> 
> All these kisses, man. It's about to get SPICY in here.


	8. i don't see no snakes but all women are bad

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's no flashback this go round. Instead, enjoy the SPICE.

**November 2035 - Jackson, Wyoming**

The weeks following the hunters' raid at the gates of Jackson were rough.

After being shot, nearly bleeding out in the snow, and getting patched and plugged and sewn back together, every inch of Lucy’s body fucking hurt. It had taken hours to get the feeling back in her shoulder, but once sensation returned, she wished it had stayed gone. She could, unfortunately, feel the full brunt of the bullet wound now. The bullet itself, though small caliber, still sat embedded in her muscles, and every twitch and pull of muscle reminded her of its presence. Pain radiated out through her body, which left her sore and cranky for a solid week.

Doc advised getting clean might help with some of the soreness. The first attempt at a shower failed, as well as the second, but after Lucy figured out how to do it (with Maria's help), she was finally able to scrub herself clean. It didn't do much to help with the soreness, but she did feel better after getting properly clean for the first time in over a month. Yet, despite efforts to clean up, blood still crusted up under her bandages and itched something fierce. So, one step at a time.

Despite the pain, Lucy only lasted about a full twelve hours before the complaints started. Never one to sit still, she'd started whining that she was ready to leave around noon the first day and hadn't stopped whining for two full weeks. It wasn’t that she felt good enough to leave - far from it. In fact, she could barely manage to get out of bed to use the bathroom, much less leave the hospital. It was just that she couldn't sit still for long, and she had work to do, and she really just wanted to sleep in her own bed.

So, after a week confined to her hospital bed, bored to tears with reading and very nearly mopey, Lucy all but begged Doc to let her get back to work down in the morgue. If she couldn't go home, she could at least get some work done at the hospital. Surprisingly, Doc agreed and ordered a trial run (just to be safe). He’d bound up her arm to make sure she didn’t move it while she worked and, for the most part, left her to her own devices. Once the first couple of days had passed, seemed satisfied she wasn't overextending herself and -not to mention - glad that she was 1.) back to work fixing his equipment and 2.) not yelling at him every time he walked in to check on her.

Nevertheless, allowing Lucy to get back to work was a blanketly unpopular decision - with Maria especially - because (and the complaint wasn't unfounded) she really should be resting. Still, she got up every morning, got dressed, and made her merry way down to her workstation in the morgue regardless of the complaints.

In addition to being allowed to get back to work, Lucy also wasn't at a loss for company. Maria stopped in every few hours to check on her - just whenever she had time during the day. Tommy had done much the same, though he stayed for longer periods of time. Ellie and Joel would stop in at night. Normally, Ellie would leave after a couple of hours, but Joel would stay well into the night, usually until Doc ordered him out for the evening. Lucy finally noticed after the first week of being stuck in the hospital that they came in patterns, almost like they were checking to make sure she was still actually at the hospital. (It would be funny if it weren’t frustrating - how was she going to sneak out when someone was always watching?)

Joel was the only one who didn't bother her about resting. He came by after his shifts and either kept her company while she worked or until Doc ordered him out for the night. Mostly, he was content to sit around and relax, but he'd occasionally bring her something to listen to or read. The couple of days before he and Tommy left to assist with tracking down the hunter camp, he'd even stayed well into the night, long after Doc had ordered him out.

When two weeks had come and gone with patrol after patrol returning empty-handed, Tommy had decided it was time to search more intensively. With Tommy leading the effort, they'd taken some of the older, more experienced people and a few of the older teenagers like Jesse. That didn't exactly stop Lucy from worrying. They'd been gone for a little over a week now with no word yet, and the longer they were gone, the worse the worry became.

But when Maria came to see Lucy on the day more than three weeks after the hunter raid, it wasn’t simply to check on her as usual. This was business.

That day, Maria stormed through the double doors of the morgue, harried and determined, and, without taking a seat, launched into her whole spill, “We have a problem.”

Which, you know, is the best way to start a conversation.

Lucy looked up from her workstation. “A _hello_ would be nice."

Lucy had been down in the morgue all day working on a project for Doc. It wasn't one of her usual projects, like fixing the old medical equipment or improving equipment in need of updates. It was a special project, harkening back to what she'd been trained to do before the outbreak as an engineer: culturing all the little, crawly things creeping around the human biology. Why Doc assumed she knew how to do that, she couldn't say, but luckily, she did.

Lucy rolled around in her office chair to face Maria, gesturing for her friend to take a seat. “What’s going on now?”

“Tommy’s group found the hunter camp.”

Finally, some news. After the hunters’ attempted raid at the gate three weeks previously, Tommy sent out a responsive patrol to round up any straggling hunters and find the camp. The patrol had returned without success, and from there, two more patrols were sent out and also returned unsuccessful. The most recent patrol, led by Tommy and Joel, had left a week previously.

“So, what’s the problem?” Lucy raised an eyebrow. "Is everyone okay?"

“They’re Fireflies. Or, what’s left of them.”

Well, that was equal parts unexpected and downright alarming. Fireflies didn't venture out into the rural areas. Their whole purpose was to terrorize FEDRA, so they stuck to quarantine zones; they had no reason to venture out.

"The closest Firefly base is in Salt Lake City, and that's still pretty far away." Lucy questioned, incredulous, “What are they doing all the way out here?”

"I don't know yet," Maria shrugged. “Tommy said it looked like most of their camp participated in the raid, so they’re either dead or ran off into the woods. And what was left of the camp apparently tried to fight back.”

“Any casualties?”

“Not on our side.”

Which meant there were a lot of casualties.

“So, there’s no way to find out why they were out here?”

“Our patrol brought two of them back. Tommy and Joel are working on getting them to talk now.”

“Sucks for them. The hunters, I mean,” Lucy observed. She rolled her chair back over to her workstation and switched the microscope light back on. “Want me to take a crack at it?”

“If Tommy can’t get anywhere with them, maybe,” Maria said, finally taking a seat. “Just depends. Not yet though.”

“Too bad. I woke up cranky this morning.”

Maria edged up next to Lucy’s workstation, observing with a calculated eye. “Are you feeling okay?”

Lucy was feeling better as a whole, but she hadn't slept well that week. Whether it was still the residual by-product of being shot or the effort of healing, she couldn't say. Or it might have something to do with Tommy and Joel being gone. Probably a little of both.

Lucy’s eyes were ringed by dark hollows. “I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine.” Maria pursed her lips. “You look like you need _rest_.”

“If I don’t do something productive, I’m going to lose my mind.” Lucy gestured at her workstation, which was stacked with jars of chemicals and samples and layered with notes, all of which were arranged in neat square groups. “I have more than enough work to do down here."

Maria glanced over at Lucy’s fastidiously neat, though cramped, workstation. "I wish you would take it easy."

Lucy ignored her. “I also need to go down to the power plant, but Doc hasn’t cleared me to go back there yet.”

"Good," Maria replied. She tilted her head, turning her attention to Lucy's face. “Mike and Mark can handle it until you're cleared. When is Doc going to take your stitches out?”

Lucy was silent for a few seconds, thinking. “Today, allegedly. If it looks okay, he said he'd clear me for light patrol duty.”

"I'd rather you didn't do that yet."

Maria felt like a broken record, telling Lucy over and over again to take it easy – not that the feeling was new where Lucy was concerned. They had grown up together, though Maria was a few years older; she had long been accustomed to her friend being impossibly stubborn about everything. But, Maria surmised, they were both stubborn. Two stubborn braincells in one noggin.

"Tommy schedules me with Joel," Lucy reminded her. "I expect I will be well-supervised."

Maria smirked. “Maybe if I give Joel all of next week off, you'll sit your ass at home and stay there.”

Not a bad idea, all things considered. Lucy could work with that.

Lucy snorted. “Who’s going to lead patrols if you do that?”

“Tommy.” She gestured towards herself. “Or me.”

“I'll think about it,” Lucy promised with a tiny grin. “When did they get back?”

“About an hour ago.”

“I guess they’re still working on those hunters, then.”

“Yeah,” Maria nodded. “For the rest of the day, I'd guess. You know Joel's methods are... different.”

Joel’s methods of interrogation had proven questionable at best, but no one could deny they were effective. And since these hunters were Fireflies, his questionable methods might be the best way to get them to talk.

Lucy snickered. “He's good at his job, that's for sure.”

“You think?”

A knock sounded on the morgue door, short and rapt.

Lucy called for whoever was at the door to come in. Maybe Doc was coming to check on her finally - she hoped so. She could go home for the day as soon as he took the stitches out of her shoulder.

Better than Doc, Ellie stepped through the morgue doors. She was disheveled and dirty, presumably from farming duty, and looked pretty cranky, which wasn't exactly surprising if she was coming from farming duty. Over the past few months, she'd started complaining about not being allowed out on patrol with the older teenagers, but her complaints had mostly fallen on deaf ears. Tommy wasn't keen on letting any of the younger teenagers out on patrol, but he would at least admit that Ellie was capable of handling herself. And though Lucy didn't know for sure, she suspected Joel might have his hand in that.

“Any news yet?” Maria asked, folding her arms.

Ellie sat down in one of the rolling chairs. She must have been designated as the runner.

She shook her head. “Not yet. Jesse said all they know is that they’re Fireflies. _Were_ Fireflies.”

“I’m going to go check in.” Maria nodded and stood. She squeezed Lucy's shoulder (the one that wasn't bandaged) before she left. “Let me know what Doc says.”

"Will do."

Lucy went back to working at her workstation as Maria slipped out the morgue doors. She glanced up from the microscope in front of her. “How did it go?”

Ellie pushed Maria's abandoned rolling chair out of the way and scooted up to Lucy's workstation. “Jesse said no casualties on our side.”

“Good,” Lucy replied absently, scratching on her notepad. "It's good they're letting Jesse take the longer patrols now. He's earned it."

"Yeah," Ellie acknowledged, though she still pouted. "Wish they would let me go."

Lucy nudged Ellie's knee with hers. "You'll get there. I talked to Tommy, and he said he'd think about it."

"Which means no."

"Not necessarily."

"It does if Joel has a say in it," Ellie mumbled.

Lucy couldn't really argue with that. "He's got a little bit of a protective streak."

"A little?" Ellie scoffed.

Again, hard to argue with that.

"He'll loosen up - just give him time," Lucy chuckled. "Did Jesse say anything else?"

"He said those hunters looked like they were from farther up north, but that's about it."

"There's a Firefly base up in Montana that’s not far from here," Lucy said, "so that would make sense."

Ellie watched Lucy scribble on her notepad and stare into the microscope. She'd only ever seen Lucy fix equipment - medical equipment, some of the power plants structures, old electronics, guns. Lucy could fix anything given enough time. She'd never seen her use a microscope, though.

Ellie scooted her chair up next to Lucy. “What are you working on?”

Lucy turned the microscope so Ellie could take a look through the lens. “Doc wanted me to culture an abnormal patch of fungus found on a dead infected.”

Ellie peered into the lens at the squirming little blobs under the glass, though she didn’t quite know what she was looking at. Not that she voiced that. “Why?”

“To make sure it’s not a new cordyceps strain.”

Ellie paused. “Is it?”

Lucy shrugged. “That’s what the culture is for. If it is, we’ll be on the lookout for a potential new type of infected. But it’s not behaving like cordyceps, so it's probably not.”

“Is this what you do down here every day?”

“No,” Lucy said, poking Ellie's side so she could move back to her spot. “Usually, I’m just fixing equipment. We don’t bring bodies down to the morgue anymore since that one guy turned on the slab, so I’ve made it my workspace.”

“Seems a little depressing," Ellie observed, surveying the stark, clinical whiteness of the room.

“A little,” Lucy agreed. “But there’s room to do what I need to do where I won't be in the way. No one’s ever poking around down here, so I don't have to worry about my stuff getting moved around.”

Ellie relaxed back into her chair, searching Lucy's face carefully. “Is this what you did in Atlanta?”

Ellie had asked Lucy what she did before she came to Jackson, so the question wasn't surprising. Maybe Lucy would tell her eventually - when she'd learned to deal with it herself.

“Not exactly, but this is part of it…”

"That's not a real answer." Ellie pulled a face. "Did you fix stuff like you do here? Did you do," she waved her hand vaguely, "whatever this is? What else did you do?"

Lucy glanced down at Ellie's arm, so quick that Ellie almost didn't notice. "This and that, really. I worked in a lab."

Just as Ellie was about to respond, another knock sounded on the morgue door, effectively cutting her off. This time, Doc stepped through the doors, looking mightily disgruntled. For Doc, cranky was a natural state of being, but he seemed inordinately cranky. At least, more so than usual. And when Dr. Marlow was disgruntled, it was best to stay out of his way.

“You alright, Doc?” Lucy asked, pushing away from her workstation.

“I will be once today is over,” Doc replied, striding over to the supply closet. He pulled down gloves, rolls of cloth bandages, and a roll of metal tools. “One of the girls went into labor this morning.”

No wonder Doc was cranky. He always took it hard when things didn't go as planned, but he especially hated dealing with labor and delivery, with good reason. Lucy could understand why; she'd had to help before when things hadn't gone as planned.

Lucy winced. “Poor thing. Everything going okay?”

“So far, yes,” Doc said. He washed his hands before taking a seat in the rolling chair between Lucy and Ellie. He yanked on the gloves and rolled out the supplies in his hand. “But she’s getting close, so I want to go ahead and get your stitches out.”

“Works for me.”

Lucy unbuttoned the flannel shirt and gingerly rolled down the shoulder of her shirtsleeve. Doc peeled back the layer of cloth that served as a bandage and peered at the line of stitches, deeming it acceptable.

“Lucky you,” Doc said, discarding the used bandage. He leaned over Lucy's shoulder and got to work, snipping and pulling out a line every few seconds. “It's healed pretty well. No infection. You might not get feeling back in your shoulder completely, though."

"I can feel what you're doing, unfortunately."

Doc grinned his rueful little grin. "Ah, the folly of the human body."

Lucy held steady, wincing with each tug on her skin. “So, am I cleared for patrol?”

“Short patrols, and only since you'll be going out with a partner. Still no on the power plant. Too much heavy equipment.”

“One step at a time, I guess.”

Once Doc finished picking the sutures out of Lucy's skin, he attached a fresh bandage. “Try not to lift your arm above your head.”

Lucy buttoned her flannel back up. “I’ll do my best.”

Doc made his timely exit while Lucy concentrated on gathering up her work. Since he'd taken her stitches out and replaced the bandage, she could go home. And it was best leave as soon as possible; she wouldn't altogether rule out Doc asking her to help with that girl if she stayed too long.

Ellie, not one to be deterred, asked again. "So, what else did you do?"

"Oh, just whatever needed to be done," Lucy replied, focusing particularly hard on packing her bag so she wouldn't have to meet Ellie's eye. "Kind of like I do here."

Ellie could tell when Lucy was lying, which she often did when asked this particular question. Well, maybe not lie; it just wasn't the full truth. She just couldn't imagine why Lucy would need to lie.

"Oh."

In an effort to change the subject, Lucy asked, "Why don't we head out? I'll make you dinner."

Ellie nodded. "Okay”

* * *

**November 2035 - Jackson, Wyoming**

The sun had just begun to set as Lucy and Ellie crossed the threshold into Lucy’s home. Ellie looked like she could use some down-time, so Lucy left her to watch a movie on the couch rather than asking her to help make dinner like she normally would have. So, Lucy left Ellie to her own devices while she changed into sweatpants and a flannel.

Ellie always had a hard time when Joel was gone for extended periods of time like this. From the little Lucy had learned about their trip from Boston to Salt Lake City, she'd inferred there was some trauma that Ellie hadn't learned to deal with yet. Lucy had figured out after the first couple of times Joel left that Ellie dealt with separation anxiety borne from that trauma. It wasn't purposeful; in fact, Ellie didn't seem to realize it. But it was there. So, Lucy left her to relax.

Dinner was almost done when Joel knocked on the door. Lucy answered, seeing as Ellie had fallen asleep on the couch while Lucy watched over the food. They tiptoed into the kitchen where the danger of waking her was slim; best to let her sleep.

Lucy hugged him as soon as they were safely out of earshot. He must’ve showered before he walked over; his short hair was still damp and smelled pleasantly clean.

“Glad you’re back.”

Joel kissed her forehead. "How're you feelin'?"

"Sore, but okay."

Joel shucked off his jacket, leaving him in a thick flannel, and sat down at the kitchen table. The circles under his eyes were dark, and the lines on his forehead seemed deeper somehow, like he was still keyed up from earlier. There were fresh scrapes on his knuckles, though they'd been cleaned meticulously, and the beginnings of bruises pooling up underneath the scrapes.

He nodded towards the living room where Ellie was still snoring soundly. "How long has she been here?"

"Couple of hours," Lucy said, returning to her spot next to the stove. She hopped up on the counter since it was no longer in use. "She watched Doc take out my stitches. Figured I'd just let her sleep."

"She probably needs it."

Joel was also aware that Ellie had trouble coping whenever he left for a long time, not that she would ever tell him that (Lucy and Maria had clued him in there). She'd picked up more than a few of his bad habits.

Lucy swung her feet, leaning forward on her elbows. "How'd everything go? Were you able to find out who those hunters were?"

Joel nodded. “They’re from Washington. Olympia."

"They're a long way from home."

"Apparently the infected situation up there is pretty bad," Joel said. He'd worked on one guy for nearly two hours before the hunter had talked. But he got it out of him. "There was an outbreak within their faction that basically decimated them, and that’s all that was left.”

Lucy raised an eyebrow. “So, what? They decide to attack the first town they see?”

“Not exactly.”

Joel had considered whether to tell Lucy what was said but deemed it best that he did. Tommy agreed.

Joel bit his lip, considering how best to frame his explanation. "The two hunters we saw at the music store were scouting for food. The hunters who tried to raid the gate were looking for you."

"Me?" Lucy asked. "Why were they looking for me?"

And this was the part that Joel had been agonizing over for the past hour - the part that he and Tommy had agonized over even telling Maria.

“They wouldn’t tell us exactly why, but…”

“But?”

"They seem to think you know something about the infection that could help them. Any idea what they want?"

Lucy shook her head. "I wish I knew what they wanted, but I don't know anything more about the infection than they do. Than anyone does, really."

"Do you know who could have sent them?"

"No. I know some Fireflies, but no one who was stationed in Washington."

Although Joel knew she wouldn't tell him exactly what she did down in Atlanta, and although he had guessed (probably accurately), if it came down to the safety of the people in Jackson, she'd tell him. So, if she said she didn't know any Fireflies in Washington, then she didn't know.

"Well, they knew you," Joel said. "Or they thought they did."

"Not well enough keep from shooting me."

He'd thought about that, which leant to the credibility of her statements.

"Right." He watched her idly, searching for something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. “Tommy doesn’t trust what they’re saying.”

“Well, someone there has to know me and where I am if they were searching for me here," Lucy observed. "They couldn't just pull my name out of thin air like that, much less my location."

He’s thought about that, too.

“That’s what I’m afraid of…”

Lucy could think of a couple of people who might be looking for her, but none of whom could possibly know about Jackson. She ran down through the list of possibilities, discrediting each of them. Anyone who could possibly know she was in Jackson was dead. And they couldn't have found her from the radio broadcasts; she didn't use her name for this exact reason. Plus, there was no way the broadcasts would reach Washington from Wyoming.

Feeling it best to change the subject, Joel stood. "Can I help with dinner?"

“It’s all done,” Lucy said. She hopped down from the counter and fished a short stack of clean plates out of the sink. “But you can help me set the table.”

* * *

**November 2035 - Jackson, Wyoming**

Ellie left after dinner, citing the need to go home and sleep. She hugged them both on her way out and shuffled out the front door, laden down with leftovers for the next few days and promising to come back for breakfast in the morning.

After Ellie left, Lucy busied herself clearing the table and setting the leftovers to the side. She'd purposefully made enough food for Ellie to take home with her, plus a little extra in case she didn't feel like cooking.

“Don’t worry about that,” Joel said, shooing her away from the sink. "I'll take care of it."

“How about you wash and I’ll dry?” Lucy said, sliding over. “We'll get done quicker that way.

“Deal.”

They finished quickly, glad to be done and able to relax. With Ellie gone and Tommy and Maria unlikely to show up, they had the whole night to themselves.

Lucy stood next to the stove in the kitchen, hair left to hang in curls down her back. She really should pull it up out of the way, but she'd long since picked up on the fact that Joel liked it down. “Well, we have the whole night to ourselves. We could watch a movie?”

"Sounds good to me."

Lucy sent him to go pick a movie and get settled in while she turned out all the lights and locked the doors. The fewer lights there were shining in through the windows, the less likely anyone would be to come knock on the door. And Lucy, bless her heart, only had enough patience for Joel tonight.

The glow from the fireplace cast the room in shades of orange that not even the glow from the television could dilute. He'd picked some old action movie - mindless and dull, but still oddly good. Just enough to keep their attention.

Lucy folded herself into Joel's side, careful to keep her injured shoulder angled away from him. He was warm and solid, the weight of his arm heavy across her shoulders. It was the most relaxed she'd been in weeks. She could fall asleep like that; just close her eyes and drift off right there on the couch with the television humming, burrowed under a mass of blankets, tucked under Joel's arm.

She _could_.

But Lucy had a better idea. They had the whole night to themselves, after all, and she hadn't seen Joel in over a week - certainly not since Doc had let her go home. And the hospital wasn’t exactly the best place to do anything other than get in a goodnight kiss.

Therefore, she still had an itch in need of scratching, and she kind of got the impression that Joel did, too.

Since Lucy had laid down and tucked herself up under his arm, Joel had barely bothered to keep his attention focused on the movie. He'd taken to rubbing the back of her neck, which he'd discovered she really, _really_ liked (it had knocked her out almost immediately when he'd tried it at the hospital and every time thereafter). Over the course of the hour, he'd shifted from the back of her neck to right between her shoulder blades, testing to see if she'd like that, too.

Lucy shifted her legs out from under her and across his lap. She rested a hand on his stomach just above the line of his waist, glancing up to gauge his reaction. The corners of his mouth twitched, but he kept attenuated to the movie, though his attention was still tenuous at best. He tucked his hand behind her knees and drew her in closer, tracing a slow pattern behind her knees.

Smooth.

Lucy stayed like that for a good half-hour, not moving, enjoying the warmth and the slow path his fingertips traced into the back of her knees and his hand between her shoulder blades.

Really, if she didn't have other plans, she'd be out like a light.

Eventually, about an hour before the end of the movie, Lucy began tracing the line of his stomach through his shirt. Her fingers bumped along the buttons, guided along by the split in the flannel. She worked the bottom button open to get to the t-shirt underneath, tracing through the thinner material.

"I don't think you're watching the movie," Joel hummed quietly.

He'd long since stopped making his languid little patterns behind her knees, instead opting to just wedge his hand between them.

Lucy shrugged. "I've seen it before."

She found the edge of his t-shirt and instead opted to trace the warm patch of skin directly under the hem.

"Me too," Joel agreed.

He could really do without watching the last hour of the movie.

"Got any better ideas?"

Her blunted nails just barely scratched him, sending goosebumps crawling across his skin.

Joel pressed a kiss into her hair, keeping his eyes trained on the television screen to stop himself from giving in right then and there. "Told you I made a list."

"I'm guessing your list is more interesting than this movie."

"Should keep your attention."

Joel hooked a finger under Lucy's chin and tilted it up towards him, movie long forgotten. With her mouth flush against his, he couldn't fathom how he could think of anything else but the softness of her full lips and the warmth radiating off of her. Even the nerves crawling in his belly were squashed down, swept away by the sluggish heat creeping in to replace them.

Lucy slid a hand up his chest, up to his face, then threaded her fingers through his hair and held him there. She couldn't think of anything better than this, better than the soft slide of his lips from the corner of her mouth to her jawline, to the spot underneath her ear that made her tug at his hair. His beard scratched at her skin, prickly, yet it still tickled enough to make her twitch.

If someone were going to give in, it would be a good time to do it.

So, Lucy did just that. Breaking away, she straddled his lap, kept steady by her hands on his chest and his hands on her hips. She relaxed back onto his thighs, all decorum long forgotten.

"Oh, you've definitely got my attention," Lucy said, shifting experimentally in his lap, testing to see how much friction she could get from the slide of her sweatpants on his jeans.

She was rewarded by sharp breath and a hand squeezing her backside to keep her from moving again.

His answer came out a bit more urgent than he'd intended. "Show me."

Joel took the opportunity before she could open her mouth again to snatch her lips with his and pull her flush against him. She responded beautifully, groaning into his mouth and wrapping her arms around his neck. Her hands found his hair and held him there against her until he pulled away, struggling to keep his breathing even.

Joel pressed his forehead to Lucy’s. “You have to tell me if I’m hurting you.”

“You’re not gonna hurt me,” Lucy replied, carding her fingers through his hair. “And I don’t break that easy.”

She dragged him back down for another kiss, this time clutching at his back with a fervor that left him flushed.

Joel rested his hands on her hips, clutching at her to keep her as close as possible. The radiating warmth from the fireplace combined with the blankets piled up around them and their clothing was too much; something would have to be done about that, preferably sooner rather than later.

Lucy clearly had the same idea. "I think we need a little more room."

Joel patted her thigh. "Scoot, then."

Somewhere between the couch and Lucy’s bed, that radiating heat became altogether inflammatory. They could hardly walk more than a step or two without grabbing the other, pulling the other along, yanking the other in for another kiss. They stopped next to her bedroom door to use the wall for leverage, pulling and pressing down, searching for any amount of friction necessary for relief, though relief couldn't be found.

Joel all but hauled her over to her bed, concerned only with getting from Point A to Point B to effectuate the removal of all oppressive, infernal clothing, namely his jeans which had gotten unbearably tight. Lucy stood between his thighs and busied herself picking at the buttons of his flannel one by one. She couldn’t lift her arm over her head, but she could lift it enough to shove each button through its respective hole one by one until she could push his flannel off of his shoulders, leaving him in his thin undershirt. The undershirt came next, thrown unceremoniously to the floor.

Lucy decided that Joel looked quite pretty like this. Beautiful, really, right down to the scars and the graying hair and red flush painting his chest. That flush was starting to creep up his neck, as she'd seen it do whenever he got embarrassed, probably much to his dismay. His skin was sun-weathered from the years of a life hard lived, the evidence encapsulated by freckles dusting his shoulders. He'd finally managed to get up to a healthy weight, which left him warm and solid.

Flawless.

From there, it was just a matter of moving everything else out of the way. He helped her ease her flannel down over her shoulder, coaxed her out of the sweatpants. She hadn’t bothered with underwear as it was just another layer she hoped, eventually, she wouldn’t need, his surprised reaction to which was downright priceless.

Joel coaxed her closer, coaching her to brace one leg on the bed, foot next to his thigh, while she still stood. His pressed a skin to the soft skin of her navel, just above where she was pretty and pink and bare. The insistent little voice echoing through the reptilian part at the back of his brain wanted a taste, and he had to agree.

“Tell me if you need me to stop,” Joel gasped, his voice coming out far hoarser than intended. He couldn’t keep his hands still, running the palms of his hands up and down her backside in a continuous circle.

"I think it would be a little cruel if you did."

Joel licked his way up from Lucy’s inner thigh to the slit between her legs, sucking bruises into her skin and soothing them over with kisses and swipes of his tongue.

She wound her fingers into his short hair, voice high and tight. “Joel.”

“Relax, honey,” he said softly. The next swipe of his tongue was closer to the mark, right at the juncture at the top of her thigh. “Just watch.”

The soft whine she made when he ran his tongue up her slit would be cemented in his memory for the rest of his life; it was a gentle thing, relieved, yet still wound so tight it was like she might break. He did it again and was rewarded with the same soft strained whine and a sharp tug on his hair. He glanced up to find her eyes trained on him, gray and dark and fascinated.

“Can you lay on your back?”

He needed a little more leverage for what he planned to do, and he would get a better angle like that.

Lucy nodded, voice tight. “Yeah.”

Joel coaxed her onto her back and knelt down, elbows propped on the mattress, so that he could dip down between her thighs.

“ _Joel_ -”

“Watch me,” Joel hummed again, pressing a kiss to the soft skin of her inner thigh, just a little too far from where she needed him to go.

She watched intently, analyzing, likely trying to figure out how best to pay him back after this.

He grinned before sealing his mouth over her clit.

There it was, that soft whine again. Definitely gonna be seared into his brain, forever and ever _amen_. She keened when slid his tongue between her swollen folds, sucking the nub of her clit with something akin to outright reverence. He really could do this for hours, no matter how oppressive the heat was, no matter how tight his jeans felt, that soft little whine and the tugs on his hair and the taste of her were more than worth it.

Spurred on by Lucy yanking on his hair, he slipped a finger, then two, into her entrance; teasing at first, just the shallow dip of his fingers to see what other pretty sounds he could coax out of her, then slow and deep, chased by his tongue. With the hand not currently knuckle-deep in her cunt, he grasped her hip for leverage but didn’t bother to do a single thing to stop her from grinding up against his mouth.

“Joel, please-” Lucy gasped.

“Please, what?” he asked, pressing a kiss to the soft skin of her stomach, still thrusting with his fingers.

She didn't answer in favor of clapping a hand over her mouth.

Well, now, that just wouldn't do. Without moving away, without breaking contact with her skin, reached up to tug her hand away from her mouth. He crawled up higher, trailing his lips up between her breasts to tease her and taking a nipple between his teeth when she made that strained whine again.

“What do you want me to do, baby?”

“Just - gimme a kiss-”

Joel did as she asked, still thrusting his fingers in and out, still mindful to stay away from her injured shoulder, and kissed her, the taste of her pungent on his tongue. The fabric of his jeans scratched her inner thighs as he settled there, all at once teasing and bordering on the edge of frustrating.

When Joel broke away to take a breath, Lucy didn't let him stop for long. She surged up to kiss him again, swiping her tongue over his bottom lip. Every move, every tiny pant and groan, sent a stinging wave of goosebumps up his back, that same sluggish heat getting angrier and angrier. Her hand slipped down from the back of his neck to his chest, carding through the soft hair, and down over his stomach to the space between his legs.

At that point, he was so hard it almost hurt. He rested his forehead against hers, eyes closed, as she palmed him through his jeans. She squeezed him, and the groan he made caught even him off-guard.

"Looks like you could use some attention," Lucy grinned. She squeezed him again as if making her point, pulling the same rough groan from the back of his throat. "Sounds like it, too."

His answer definitely came out more desperate than intended. "Maybe."

Lucy nudged him so that he laid on his back. She stood between his legs, waiting on him to strip down. The places where he'd sucked bruises into her skin bloomed red and would shortly darken to purple, and he was struck by an odd pride. He'd licked and bitten and sucked and left the evidence where only he would get to see, which, by the quirk of her eyebrows, she must have caught on to.

"Pants off, big man," Lucy grinned, patting the outside of his knee. "Keep me waiting any longer and you'll have to start over."

Joel wouldn't mind that, actually, but he did as commanded and dropped his jeans and underwear.

Joel _definitely_ looked quite pretty like this, on his back staring up at her, cock flushed red and big and leaking from the tip, twitching in his hand where he palmed himself. She leaned down over him and kissed him, running a delicate finger up his shaft.

He sat up and scooted to the edge of the bed. “Just come here.”

Joel guided her down into his lap, pulling her flush against his chest. Her nipples prickled against his skin, prompting him to take one, then the other between his fingers and working them to the point of soreness. He took each into his mouth, laving with his tongue at them to soothe away some of the soreness. She nudged his cheek with the tip of her nose to make him tilt his head, peppering the side of his neck with kisses before sucking bruises into his collarbone where they would be just out of sight under his shirt.

Clearly, Joel wasn't the only one with a possessive streak, and he couldn't quite explain the lance of heat that flashed through his spine at the thought of that.

Joel couldn’t quite pinpoint when Lucy pushed him onto his back, but he found himself being straddled quite suddenly. With a rather cruel smile, she took his cock in hand, running the leaking head along her slit, too slowly to offer him any real relief. It took everything in him to keep still, to not buck up against her. He had the sneaking feeling she'd stop and prolong the torture if he did.

When Lucy was satisfied that she'd teased him to the point of absolute desperation, she guided him so that the head of his cock was pressed against her entrance. He held onto her hips and kept her steady as she sank down on him, watching with rapt attention.

Up to that point, Joel had kept it together quite well, but when Lucy was finally fully seated on his lap, he came apart under her touch.

Lucy bent to kiss him, hands pressed to his chest for leverage, and rolled her hips. He pulled her down on top of him so that her breasts were smushed up against his chest and thrust up to meet the steady roll of her hips. Keeping one hand on her backside to steady her, he worked a hand between them and teased her clit with his thumb, working in quick concentric circles.

Lucy was slick, dripping into his lap and onto his hand. The soft wet sounds of the backs of her thighs meeting the tops of his would have been embarrassing with anyone else, but it only served to make her grind down harder.

Joel had worked her up to the point of finality long before she'd ever climbed into his lap (bless him and his clever little tongue - she'd have to pay him back later). She rolled her hips with finality and came with a soft groan, mouth pressed to his so fiercely that he could taste iron at the back of his throat. The sharp flutter of her cunt around him nearly drove him to his end right there, but he kept it together long enough to work her through her end.

Joel slowed, however, cupping the back of her neck. "Need me to stop?"

"Fuck no," Lucy gasped, wrapping her arms around his neck. "Not on your life."

With that, Joel flipped her so he could chase his own end, teasing her overstimulated clit as he thrust into her with the same slow, deep pace. She wrapped her legs around his waist, arching up into him so that he could slide in easily. She scratched at his back, his sides, reaching around to grab his ass. He was so close, the heat pooling like mercury in his belly, liquid and threatening to spill over.

He slowed again. "Where do you want it, honey?"

" _Anywhere_."

He rolled his hips, once, twice, sliding out to mark the inside of her thighs.

Joel stilled, still caught between her thighs. He rested up on his elbow, over to her uninjured left side. She cupped his face in her hands, pressing soft kisses to his lips and forehead, his eyelids, his nose - anywhere she could reach.

He kissed her, soft and languid, cupping her hip. "You okay?"

"Absolutely."

He looked down at where he'd come all along her thigh. "Let's get cleaned up."

"Oh, I don't mind being cold and sticky," she remarked, eyes dancing.

Joel rolled his eyes at her teasing but let her pull him down for another kiss before he went to grab a washcloth from Lucy's bathroom. He waited for the tap to run warm before soaking the cloth and heading back out to clean her up (wouldn't do to use a cold washcloth whether she actually liked being cold and sticky or not).

Once Joel had gotten them both cleaned up, he climbed into bed and gathered her up against his chest, throwing the blankets over them. Lucy wrapped herself around him, smushed right up against his side. Joel had never considered himself to be much of a cuddler (even though he was), but, yeah, he wouldn't be moving from that exact spot for a good, long time.

"Good thing we've got the whole week off," Lucy mumbled, face pressed to his chest.

"Tired you out?" Joel teased.

Lucy shrugged, poking his side for teasing her. "Oh, I could go again."

"You'll have to give me a minute, I'm afraid."

"Well, there's always morning."

Lucy trailed her fingers down over his chest to his stomach, tracing the scars and muscle and softness that signified he'd finally achieved a healthy weight. She stopped at the spot where he's been impaled, where the scar was still angry red and tender.

She propped up on her elbow. "Can I ask what happened here?"

"I got thrown out of a window and got impaled on a piece of rebar."

She started and looked up at him, alarmed. " _Impaled_?"

Joel nodded. "Impaled."

"Shit, Joel!"

"It certainly didn't feel good."

"I can't believe..."

Lucy trailed off, but the _I can't believe you lived_ was very much still hanging in the air.

"Me either."

Perhaps incensed by the endorphins flooding his system, Joel had always been more willing to talk in moments like these. He trailed a finger over a deep, knotted scar the size of a quarter on her thigh. "What's this?"

"I've been shot before." Lucy shifted her thigh, which served to present the scar more visibly and had the added effect of reminding him that they were still very much naked. "That one went all the way through, at least."

"Bad luck."

"You can say that again."

Joel's gaze flickered over the knotted scar that stretched across her abdomen. He didn't say anything, and neither did she, though she noticed where his eyes tracked. He already knew what that scar was from - there was no need to ask.

It was probably best to switch to a lighter note.

Joel curled around her. "Feel like sleeping in tomorrow?"

Lucy, face once again squished to his chest, agreed. "Mhm."

Joel knocked out before she did, with his face tucked into the crook of her neck and his arm slung over her waist.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yo, I made it eight chapters of a story before smut actually showed up, so I need a round of applause for my sense of decorum and restraint. As they say, ya can't un-pop that cherry. That being said, shit's about to get real, and the smut only gets spicier from here.


	9. silent saviors look away

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Flashbacks resume next chapter. For now, enjoy the SPICE.

** November 2035 - Jackson, Wyoming **

The fire had died down sometime during the night, leaving the house just a few degrees warmer than fucking freezing. Lucy didn’t plan on moving until she absolutely had to, though. She had a human heater.

Joel hadn’t moved since he’d fallen asleep. He’d knocked out with his face tucked into the crook of Lucy’s neck and his arm slung over her waist, and there he had stayed the entire night. Which was cute, yeah, but Joel was a big guy, so the combined weight and size of him meant that Lucy woke up sweating bullets in the early hours of the morning despite the cold night air. Not that she’d be waking him up to move him – he deserved every minute of sleep he could get.

Lucy couldn’t remember him ever sleeping restfully, not once. At this point, they’d been sleeping next to (or at least in the vicinity of) each other for two months. It had been almost a year that they'd been aware of the other's sleeping patterns, what with patrols and all. Whether they were on regular overnight patrols or even the trip to Cheyenne, he always tossed and turned and mumbled in his sleep, if he slept at all. Despite having lived in Jackson for over a year now, he still hadn't trained himself to rest, having grown accustomed over the years to leaving at a moment's notice.

Now, though, Joel slept soundly, his soft breaths tickling her chest. He didn't snore ( _thankfully_ , since his face was right next to her ear), but his deep, even breathing meant that he was _out_. No nightmares, no mumbling, no tossing and turning. Just unbroken _sleep_. Maybe it had something to do with the night before, but if that's what it took to get him to sleep, Lucy would gladly take on the responsibility.

But, although he had slept well, not even hard sleep could smooth out the worry lines in his forehead or the tight set of his mouth. Perhaps it was related to the two hunters he’d questioned for most of the day yesterday. Continuous interrogation would make anyone tense. What they’d told him had clearly spooked him, and Lucy being unable to provide any answers had done nothing to ease his worry. She had answers, but they would have only troubled him more.

Joel had even managed to wrap himself around her during the night, almost like a shield. It didn't matter that he was sleeping in what was arguably the safest place he’d laid his head in over twenty years - he was still tense and apprehensive, even asleep. Likely, it was one of the many by-products of having to cut and run at any moment - of his life being permanently endangered and his safety precarious at best. What he would be shielding her from, even in sleep, Lucy couldn't say. It was probably just subconscious habit formed from a life hard lived.

In any case, the giant bear of a man had made himself into a human blanket. He’d wrapped his arm around her midsection, tucked one leg between hers (very distracting), and curled around her (even though, with his head on her chest and her arm tucked around his back, he was technically the little spoon). Now, if he’d just _stay right there_ , they’d be starting the day right.

But, of course, Joel didn’t stay like that. Likely it was the change in Lucy’s breathing that inevitably dragged him back into the world of the living, but Joel woke up not long after she did. He grumbled and nuzzled into her shoulder, tightening his grip around her waist.

His sleepy voice was hardly more than a deep rumble in his chest. “How long have you been up?”

“Not long. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you sleep like that.”

Since he at least had a tenuous grip on consciousness, Lucy didn’t feel quite so bad about moving around. She trailed her fingers through his hair, softly as she dared, pleased when she was rewarded by a happy sigh.

Joel closed his eyes, content to let her play with his hair. “I don’t usually.”

"I feel kind of bad for waking you up."

He still kept his eyes closed, though he was clearly fully, reluctantly, awake. One hand traced circles against her ribcage in a delicate path. “I don’t mind.”

“Well, you did wake up to my tits in your face, I guess.”

Joel grinned softly, beard prickly against her skin. He cracked a single hazel eye open, that tiny grin almost hidden. “I’m not complaining.”

There were enough blankets on the bed that neither one had bothered to put clothes back on. Very clearly making a point, his thumb brushed dangerously close to the underside of her breast.

"Someone's feeling risqué this morning."

"You said it, not me."

Joel finally decided to move, shifting himself further up the mattress. He gathered her up against his chest and tucked his arm under her head. The hand that had been tracing her ribs drifted to her lower back, continuing the same circular path. He left his leg tucked securely between hers ( _fucking distracting_ ).

Once comfortable, Lucy went back to carding her fingers through his hair, lightly dragging her nails across his scalp. “Didn't think you’d be a cuddler.”

“Never considered myself to be,” Joel said, clearly lying. “What _did_ you think?”

Certainly not that he’d be cuddly. Perish the thought. This was the man who, for months, could hardly hug his own brother. But, it seemed that underneath it all, big, tough, intimidating Joel, with his deep voice and his calculating eyes and his solitary disposition, was _cuddly_. 

“I don’t really know. The awkward daydreams never got this far.”

“How far did they get?”

Well, technically, Lucy hadn’t let the inappropriate daydreams get this far. The fucking was the fun part. The thought of what comes after tended to hurt. Not that she wanted to say that out loud. He'd moved his leg, apparently without meaning to, and had accidentally-on-purpose sent a twitch up her spine. Would have ruined the mood.

“Well, someone usually bothers me around the point where I climb on top of you, so…”

Joel couldn't quite disguise the air of being pleased with himself. “Too bad…”

Lucy nudged his shoulder until he was on his back. She bent to kiss him, soft and gentle, in almost painfully sweet contrast to _his fucking thigh rubbing between her legs_. “But there’s no one here to bother me now.”

The soft slide of her lips against his made it damn near impossible to pull away from her, but he did for just a second. “Ellie’s coming back for breakfast.”

“It’s still dark out.” She kissed the corner of his mouth, trailing a line to his cheek. “We've got plenty of time.”

Another soft kiss, this one just under his jaw. He tilted his head so that she could get a better angle. "All morning, probably, the way she sleeps in…"

She nudged him with the thigh trapped between his legs, putting just enough pressure on his half-hard cock to make him twitch. She must've figured out his game. "Oh, I don't think it'll take that long."

Joel wrapped a hand around the back of her neck so that when he brushed a calloused thumb over one of her nipples, she couldn't pull back away from him. The soft squeak of surprise she made was lost against his jaw. To her credit, she didn't apply pressure, didn't bear down on him; she kept on with the same soft, slow kisses while he teased her nipples up into peaks.

With her hands planted on either side of his head, she moved on from his neck to his chest. The soft kiss on his collarbone turned into a slow, bruising one - a fresh mark in conjunction with the deepening purple ones she left there the night before. Again, another white-hot lance of heat crawled up his spine at the sight. Maybe it was the idea of there being some kind of tangible evidence that he had someone to come home, but he was _really_ starting to like that.

Joel watched intently with heavy-lidded eyes, lip pulled between his teeth, as Lucy licked a stripe down his stomach, following the trail of dark hair from his chest down to his waistline. He'd stopped teasing her nipples, instead opting to prop himself up on his elbows (and if he clutched her sheets with white-knuckled hands, he'd never admit to it). She sucked a slow bruise under his navel, soothing over it with a swipe of her tongue. She did the same all along his inner thighs, leaving those same bruises, the same soft kisses, the same swipes of her tongue.

Once she was satisfied that she'd left him nice and purple, she settled down between his legs, hands planted on top of his thighs to keep him still. She left a trail of kisses everywhere but where he needed it, the soft brush of her lips and tongue against his skin absolutely maddening.

Joel didn't beg, and Lucy wouldn't have made him, but he did ask really, _really_ nicely. “Please, baby-”

She looked up at him with those deep gray eyes, pupils blown wide, and grinned as she ghosted a teasing breath over his now painfully hard cock, nowhere close enough to offer any relief. "Look at that, I didn't even have to ask for the magic word."

With that, Lucy licked a slow stripe up his shaft and wrapped her lips around the tip of his cock before taking him down as far as she could go.

Joel dropped his head back. “ _Jesus-_ ”

Using one hand to keep his hips steady, she worked the bottom of his shaft in time with the bobs of her head. His stomach flexed from the effort of keeping himself still, not wanting to break her from the rhythm she'd set. He kept astoundingly silent until she twisted her fist and hollowed out her cheeks, pulling a rough plea of her name from the back of his throat. With a glance up at him that screamed how pleased she was with herself, she twisted her fist again, and it was all he could do to keep from clapping his hand over his mouth.

Being that he'd dropped his head back and hadn't been able to lift it again, he hadn't realized that Lucy had - at some point - slipped her hand down to work her clit in time with her movements. As good as it felt, the languid burn in his stomach was manageable until the soft vibration of a whimper she definitely didn't mean to make alerted him. With that, he pulled back as the burn in his stomach tightened so hard, he almost finished before he could tell her to stop.

Joel sat up and stopped her with a hand on her shoulder, “Hold on, hold on-”

Lucy paused, lips hardly a centimeter from the tip of him. 

"Why?"

Joel was struck speechless for a moment, caught off guard by the soft look of sheer need on her face. Her mouth was red, lips shiny and swollen from use, and the most primal part of him begged him to _take take take_.

That would have to be another night, though, when they had time to learn and explore and figure out how to pull all those pretty sounds from one another. Right then, she needed some attention.

"Come here."

Joel hauled her up into his lap and coaxed her legs around him. He wrapped his hand around the back of her neck and pulled her into a bruising kiss that was all teeth and tongue. It was rougher than he really meant for it to be, but she moaned into his mouth all the same. She'd kept her hand wrapped around him, timing each movement to the rolls of his hips that he couldn't quite control.

He was too close to fuck her properly, and he didn't want to risk not pulling out fast enough, so fingers would have to do.

Joel dropped his hand down to her clit, his thumb drawing insistent circles over the little nub. Spurred on the roughness of his movement, Lucy tightened her grin around his neck and rolled her hips in time with his movements. He kept a hand on her backside to steady her and slipped two fingers into her entrance without any resistance, still working her clit. The soft, wet sounds of his fingers working her made him flush and kept him toeing that precarious edge of release.

With his forehead pressed against hers, he struggled to keep his voice even and _almost_ succeeded. "Tell me how you want-"

Lucy cut him off with a kiss, still pumping her fist, though she'd picked up the pace. “You just keep doing what you're doing.”

The soft hitch in his breathing didn't go unmissed. “Are you sure?”

She kissed him again, twisting her wrist so that he groaned into her mouth. “Very.”

When he felt her clench around his fingers and sigh his name, cunt fluttering and dripping down his hand, the burn down in his stomach finally spilled over.

Joel dropped his head to her shoulder. “ _Lucy_ -”

“Go ahead - I’ve got you.”

He came into her hand, twitching and rolling his hips up into her fist, face pressed to her shoulder.

Lucy didn't get up immediately, instead tipping his chin up so that she could kiss him soft and slow. This might kill him, he decided. These soft, slow kisses that made his chest hurt and his skin itch for more might actually be the end of him.

After a minute or so, she went to go grab a washcloth to get him cleaned up, her touch gentle on his overstimulated skin. Once she'd finished, he guided her back into his lap. 

“That's a hell of a way to get the day started."

Lucy shrugged, clearly pleased with herself. She wrapped her arms around his neck. “Figured I’d pay you back after last night. I didn't exactly have time to return the favor.”

Joel hugged her closer. “We'll just have to go slower next time.”

"Got a lot of ideas for _next time_?"

"Oh, a few, if you're interested."

Her answering grin was infectious. "I'd love to hear them."

The sun had finally begun to slip through the break in the bedroom curtain, signaling the official start to the day. Lucy could have gone back to sleep like that, would have gone back to sleep, but they did have to get the day started eventually. It wouldn't do to still be in bed when Ellie came beating down the door for food.

“We should probably go get breakfast started.”

“Probably,” Joel agreed, though he didn’t seem to be in any great hurry to get out of bed. “I’m going to go check in with Tommy after breakfast - see where they’re at with the hunters.”

“Mind if I tag along?”

“Not at all.”

Lucy patted his thigh. “Come on – breakfast first.”

* * *

** November 2035 - Jackson, Wyoming **

After sending Ellie off for the day after breakfast, Lucy and Joel met Tommy and Jesse down at the old jail. The two had both been on guard duty the night before, but neither were ready to leave by the time Lucy and Joel appeared. Tommy's hair was mightily disheveled, and Jesse yawned after every sentence, but they were both determined to get answers before leaving.

When Joel left the day before, he'd hardly been able to crack one of the hunters, and the other had yet to even open his mouth. Firefly training dictated that no matter what happens, they won't talk unless they want to. Usually. But Joel was an expert on these things, and he'd get them to talk regardless of whatever training they had. 

Tommy glanced between Lucy and Joel as they approached. They were entirely in each other’s space, though they didn’t seem to realize it. He got the feeling they’d had a long night, but he'd tease them about that later (he had the good sense not to tease them in public).

Joel was all business as usual, though. "Anything new since yesterday?"

Tommy shook his head. "No, nothing from either of them."

Joel scratched his beard, thinking. "Let’s see if we can get anything else out of the one who talked yesterday."

Tommy had never had the stomach for interrogations, though he would handle them when he had to. At moments like these, he was glad that Joel had a stronger stomach (though he did feel a little sorry for whomever Joel was interrogating). Even better, with Jesse training with Joel, he could gladly hand the responsibilities off to them.

Tommy clapped Jesse on the shoulder, who started at the contact. "Why don't you give it a shot this time?"

"I can do that."

Joel agreed. "We'll handle it."

Joel motioned for Jesse to follow him into one of the cells, and Jesse followed him without question. Jesse had more or less attached himself to Joel as a mentor, and Joel didn't seem to mind. 

Somewhere along the way over the past year, Joel had become _Everyone's Dad_ , especially to the older teens like Jesse who’d lost there’s or never had one to begin with. To everyone's amusement, it was another routine he'd slipped into without realizing it.

After Joel and Jesse were out of earshot, Lucy turned back to Tommy. “Which one hasn’t talked yet?”

“First room on the right.”

“I could give it a shot,” Lucy prompted.

It wasn't that Tommy was opposed to it; in fact, he was all for it. Lucy had been trained to do this, just like every other adult in Jackson, and she was effective. But, being that she was the person the hunters were looking for, it probably wasn't a great idea to let her try her hand at it.

So, Tommy shook his head. “They don’t need to know you’re here.”

“They shot me, Tommy. They have no idea who I am. They had a name and a location, not a face.”

"We don't know that."

Lucy shrugged. "What better way to find out?"

Joel and Maria both might kill him for this.

"Against my better judgment, I agree," Tommy replied. He shook the key to the cell from the key ring and passed it off to her. "See if you can get him to talk and come fill me in."

With that, Lucy ducked in the room and closed the door silently behind her.

The two hunters were housed in separate cells away from each, just far enough that one couldn't hear the other. That way neither knew what the other one said - made it easier to parse out whose story was true.

The hunter strapped to the chair glared up at Lucy as she dragged a chair over and sat down in front of him. She sat silently with her arms folded over her chest, lips pursed, and observed.

The hunter was an average-looking male, maybe in his twenties. In fact, he might have been barely out of his teens. The whites of his blue eyes were yellowed and bloodshot, and he stared back at Lucy half-wild. Blonde hair, dirty from weeks in the wilderness, was matted in knots. He had scars on his exposed knuckles and his face. The acne on his chin wasn't just from the lack of hygiene; whomever sent these Fireflies sent kids to raid a village.

After an agonizing silence, the hunter finally, astoundingly, piped up. “I’m not telling you anything.”

Lucy raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, I’ve heard that one before."

Clearly, he hadn't been trained as a full Firefly yet. Trained Fireflies don't talk. He didn't even have the training to keep a straight face. "Then why are you here?"

"Your buddy already told us what’s going on." Lucy tilted her head. "I'm just here to find out if he's being honest.”

“You’re lying - he wouldn’t talk.”

“You don’t know your friend as well as you think you do."

“You don’t know anything.”

"Look me in the eye," Lucy said, leaning forward. Dark gray met blue. “Do you really believe that?”

The hunter didn’t reply, though the flicker of doubt behind his eyes didn’t go unnoticed. No, he definitely hadn't been properly trained.

“So, you better hope your stories match up if you want to get out of here,” Lucy continued, leaning back in her chair. “You do want to get out of here, right?”

The hunter scoffed. “You’re not gonna let me out of here no matter what I say.”

“Did someone tell you that? We always let people go - once they give us answers, anyway.”

The hunter was silent.

Lucy quirked an eyebrow. He might have chosen to play the tough guy card, but without training, he was still just a stubborn kid. And he seemed the type to run his mouth if she could figure out how to get him going. “Listen – your friend said you want information. So do I. If you’ll answer my questions honestly, you'll be on your way back home before lunch.”

No response.

“So, you don’t want to answer?”

Finally, “No.”

“How about this, then: if you don’t open your fucking mouth and tell me why you’re here and who sent you, I’m gonna cut off your finger joints one by one and turn you out into the snow."

The hunter flinched. Ah, there we go. The self-preservation instinct. She could work with that.

Lucy scooted her chair up closer. "How long do you think you’ll last out there if you can’t hold a knife or pull a trigger, hm? You won’t even have to worry about infected finding you because the bears are gonna hunt you down before they do.”

He flinched again but stayed silent.

“Now, am I gonna have to get my knife? Because one of your buddies shot me when your group attacked the gate, so I don't have a lot of patience to deal with you.”

Silence.

“Knife it is.”

Lucy extracted a folding knife from her back pocket and flipped the blade. Without asking another question, she slammed the knife down on the hunter’s exposed hand, severing the first finger joint of his trigger finger. The hunter bit his lip, drawing blood, but didn't make a sound. Maybe the Fireflies taught him a couple of lessons after all.

“Tough guy, huh? Not for long - you all cry like babies after you lose that trigger finger,” Lucy said, wiping the blade on the hunter's pants leg. “Why did you attack the gates?”

No response, but the fear had manifested. It was all in the eyes.

Lucy slammed the knife down again, severing the second finger joint. “That’s almost your whole trigger finger gone, so speak now or forever hold your peace. Who sent you here?”

Silence. Another whack of the knife took off the rest of the finger.

"Who sent you?”

Again, she lifted the knife, but she didn't slam it down. The hunter opened his mouth.

“Fucking - _fine_ , stop,” the boy choked out, tears streaming involuntarily down his face. “Gideon Johns. Gideon Johns sent us.”

"Who the fuck is Gideon Johns?" Lucy asked, knowing exactly who Gideon Johns was and feeling well and truly infuriated.

One last ditch effort at silence on behalf of the hunter.

Lucy waved the knife at him with the knowledge that she wouldn't have to use it again. "Answer me."

The hunter eyed the folding knife. "He's our commander! He sent us here to look for Lucy James.”

“What does he want with Lucy James?”

What came next was a string of sentences with no spaces in between the words. “We’re Fireflies. Half our faction in Salt Lake City was murdered two years ago. Some of us ran to Olympia, I don’t know where the rest of them are. The infection almost wiped us out. He thinks she can fix it.”

“What do you mean, _fix it_?”

“Reverse it. Save the ones who turned. Keep the rest of us from turning.”

“He thinks she can make a vaccine?”

“Yes.”

Lucy folded the knife and slipped it into her back pocket. "Hate to tell you, kid, but you're in the wrong place."

"What?"

"The woman you're looking for never made it out of Atlanta."

"But Gideon said she'd be here."

"Did Gideon also tell you to ransack the village while looking?"

"He said by any means necessary," the hunter snapped. "Your guards attacked us first."

"I doubt that," Lucy replied. "Let me ask you something: if you're being told to retrieve someone you don't know by any means necessary, do you think anything good is going to happen to them after you find them?"

Silence.

"That's what I thought," Lucy said. She jumped up from her chair and shoved it back under the table where she found it. "Sorry about your fingers, by the way. I'll send someone in here to patch you up."

Lucy slammed the cell door behind her and locked it in place. She tossed the key on the table, not really caring if it landed where it was meant to land. She nearly made it out of the jail altogether before Tommy caught sight of her.

“What did you find out?” 

When she ignored him and kept walking, he followed. This was not the time to let her run off to cool down; he needed answers.

Tommy caught hold of her just as she put her hand on the door handle. “You can’t keep running from shit you don’t want to deal with. What did he say?”

Lucy paused and took a deep breath. Running was an age-old habit now, but. Tommy was right - no more. Frustrated and angry though she may be, this would have to be dealt with.

Lucy removed her hand from the door handle and backed away. “They were sent here to find me because their commander thinks I can make a vaccine for the infection.”

Tommy started, stunned. Judging from his reaction, Maria had kept her word and kept her mouth shut.

“Can you?”

“No, Tommy, I can’t," Lucy replied with a sigh. "It’s not possible, and also not the point.”

He raked a hand through his hair. “Well, how do they know you’re here?”

“They don’t know for certain. I worked with their commander ten years ago. Apparently, he remembered where I might be and sent them in some last-ditch effort to save his Fireflies.”

Which, theoretically speaking, was a noble gesture. Or it would have been if Gideon Johns had come to find her himself instead of sending kids in his place.

“And you’re sure they don’t actually know you’re here?” Tommy questioned. “We can’t let them go if they know you’re here.”

“Well, that kid sure didn’t fuckin' know who I am. Or if he did, he didn’t say it.”

“I’ll let Maria decide what to do from here, then.”

After a beat of silence, Lucy remembered she'd left the hunter bleeding in his chair.

“I cut off some fingers, by the way,” Lucy stated, almost sheepishly. “So, you might want to get Doc to patch him up.”

"How many damn times..." Tommy trailed off, rubbing his temples. “This is why we don’t let you teach the teenagers.”

"You let Joel teach the teenagers, and he’s way scarier than I am."

"Joel doesn't cut people's fingers off." 

Lucy had to call bullshit on that one. "Since when?"

"He doesn't _anymore_ ,” Tommy sighed. “Maria made me have a talk with him.”

“Would’ve loved to have been present for that conversation.”

For the record, it hadn’t gone over well.

* * *

** November 2035 - Jackson, Wyoming **

By the time Joel had finished with the other hunter, Lucy was long gone. Once Lucy had filled Tommy in, she'd left to go cool down without a word as to where she was going. Joel certainly couldn't blame her for running off. Since Joel let Jesse do the work of interrogating the hunter, it had taken far longer than Joel expected to get any answers. The answers he'd gotten weren't worth the wait anyway.

Despite Tommy not knowing where she’d stormed off to, Joel had a feeling he knew where she’d gone. The radio station was Lucy's place to think - she'd probably be there. He'd go check on her, and if she wanted time to herself, he'd let her be.

Once he'd filled Tommy in on what they'd found out (not much) and Tommy filled him in on what Lucy had found out (a lot), Joel went straight to the radio station, taking his time to enjoy the walk and clear his head. The hunters' information had left him on edge. Although they hadn't found out why the Fireflies had outright attacked the gate, they were able to find out what they wanted and who sent them.

Gideon Johns. Neither he nor Tommy knew anyone by the name of Gideon Johns, Firefly or otherwise, so they couldn't be much help. Lucy hadn't been entirely forthcoming about how she knew him, other than to say she had worked with him years before, so they didn't have much to go on. 

But if this man thought Lucy could make a vaccine, he clearly knew something that Lucy didn't want to tell anyone. It only served to bolster Joel's suspicion that perhaps, maybe, possibly, there was some merit to the question of whether she could. If that was the case, it was likely that Ellie's immunity was not an unfamiliar concept to her.

And Joel didn't quite know what he was supposed to do with that.

Whether Lucy knew how to make a vaccine or reverse the infection remained to be seen, but she maintained that she didn't. And although Joel was confident about his guess, he'd let her tell him in her own time. Joel had his own secrets. He could respect hers.

If Joel could only glean an ounce of comfort from what they'd learned, it would be that they hadn't recognized her. He wasn’t super ecstatic she’d interrogated the hunter herself and took the risk of being recognized, but he couldn’t exactly stop her (nor would he try). Lucy did what Lucy wanted, fuck you and your consequences.

The hunters had confirmed they'd been given nothing more than a name and a location. As a result, Tommy was of the opinion they play on the defensive until, or if, another attack happened, and Joel tended to agree. No reason to go kicking the hornet's nest.

In any case, Joel hadn't gone to the radio station to bother Lucy about hunters or Fireflies or theoretical vaccines. Those answers would come forth in their own time. For now, he was content to let it be.

Joel shut the radio station door gently behind him and knocked his boots off on the doormat. House rules dictated no tracking in snow or mud or dust. He peeked around the corner into the studio and found Lucy reclined back in her rolling chair, eyes closed, listening to the music droning softly through the station.

She opened her eyes when she heard the door shut and waved when she caught sight of him. “Hey there, stranger.”

Joel leaned against the doorway. “Thought you might be here.”

“Figured it would be a good place to relax for a while.”

"I can go if you need time?"

Lucy smiled her little half-smile and pointed to the other rolling chair in the room. "I'd rather have some company."

Joel took a seat, taking note of the music playing in the background. Soundgarden. _Outshined_. Very nice. Very Lucy. Joel wouldn't call it relaxing exactly, but it likely held a special place in her heart not unlike it held in his.

Lucy leaned her head back against the headrest. “You brought all the music.”

“I did.”

“You even alphabetized it for me.”

“Yes, ma’am," Joel replied. He didn't quite meet her eye. "Had to do something to keep busy while Doc worked on you."

Her answer was soft. "Thank you."

They lapsed into silence, just listening to the music play. The last time they'd been in the radio station together, the silences between them had been loaded and uncomfortable, deafening in a way they couldn't describe. Now, the silence was calm. There was no need to reach for mindless chatter, trying to take the edge off of the discomfort with verbal white noise.

When the current song melded into the next, Lucy finally broke the silence. “We had a tie, by the way.”

Joel raised an eyebrow. "A tie?"

“The bet?”

Right. The bet. A horse for a song. Joel hadn't forgotten about their wager, but he'd hoped she might have. Really, he knew better than to think Lucy would forget anything.

He chuckled. “I was wondering when you were going to bring that up.”

Lucy scooted her chair closer to him. “So, what do we do about a tie?”

“Call the whole thing off?”

Lucy laughed. “I guess I'll let you off the hook this time. At least, I won’t make you sing on air.”

Joel was genuinely relieved. He would have done it - he just didn't want to. “Good.”

“Besides, everyone's heard you sing by now. You and Tommy get pretty lively after a few drinks.”

“I wouldn’t call that singing.”

"Oh, I would," she teased. “It took you six months to drink a full beer around any of us. I'll take what I can get.”

“Still wouldn't call that singing.”

“You hum sometimes when you think I’m not listening.”

Lucy swung her feet up into his lap to keep him from scooting his chair away as recompense for her teasing.

Joel squeezed her ankle, content to let her stay right where she was. “I know you’re listening.”

The next song was slower, more mellow. Had the band at the New Year's party played this? Joel sort of half-remembered it might have been one of the songs played. Whether it was or not, though, it gave him an idea.

Maybe it was uncharacteristic, but in the quiet privacy of the station, Joel stood and held out a hand. "I was kind of hoping for a good slow song."

Lucy eyed his hand with surprise, the smirk on her face completely unabashed. "Are you asking me to dance?"

"Yes, ma'am."

Lucy took his hand, and Joel pulled her to her feet. She hooked an arm around his neck and let him lead her with the arm she couldn't lift. His hand settled on her hip, and he pulled her in close. They swayed to the slow beat for a while, both very much aware that they were not, by any means, dancers.

Was it awkward? Absolutely. Did that matter? Not one little bit.

"No town gossips here. Not a white glove in sight," Lucy said, standing up on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek. "Whomever will I fight for your honor, Mr. Miller?"

He rolled his eyes. "Should I bring up the empty bottle of Tanqueray that's still sitting on your table eight months later?"

"Who said that's the same bottle?"

To be fair, it was the same bottle. It was a souvenir she'd be keeping - a hallmark of when she'd kissed him the first time (even if it had just been on the cheek).

The song was almost over when Joel asked her if she wanted to head home. It was nearly time for dinner, after all, and they couldn't guarantee who might show up on Lucy's doorstep.

Lucy poked him. “There’s a couch right there if you’re looking for a repeat of this morning.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“You like it.”

He chuckled. “I do.”

Lucy flipped switches as she began closing everything down for the night. “That wasn’t a joke, by the way.”

“I could use a shower first, if you're interested?”

“Ooo, wet, naked Joel. Sign me up.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. This is the end of Part 1. Y'all are gonna love Part 2. Smut, angst, a dumpster fire full of bad decisions? Maybe some tooth-rotting fluff? The possibilities are endless.


	10. the feeling was strong when you came along now lord only knows how i suffer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Is now really the time to take a leap of faith? Looks like it.

** July 2036 - The Wyoming Museum of Science and History **

With the end of summer drawing near and another fall looming, both Joel and Lucy had been nearly overwhelmed by the amount of work there was to be done. As such, there hadn’t been a lot of time to enjoy each other’s company.

Lucy had been at the power plant day and night for the past week without reprieve. She’d been working with Mike and Mark on a full assessment of plant to hopefully circumvent the need for another run to the dam that fall, and the assessment was looking promising. Everything appeared to be in full working order for once, and there hadn’t been a power outage since she and Joel had returned from Cheyenne last winter. Still, the constant stress of work had them both dragging their feet, grumpy and exhausted every waking moment.

Between Joel being sent out on multi-day patrols and Lucy getting stuck down at the power plant for days on end, they’d hardly seen each other for more than a couple of days in the past three weeks. Not to mention, on those couple of days when they’d seen each other, it had only been for part of the evening and they’d both gone straight to sleep after dinner. All in all, they hadn’t had much time to enjoy each other’s company, in the _quality time_ sense or the _Biblical_ sense, which was frankly _draining_.

In an effort to give them both a break from the constant pressure, Tommy had assigned them to patrol the long southern route for the weekend. Lucy assumed this was Tommy’s way of telling them to take the weekend for themselves while still being productive, and she planned on taking full advantage of the relative peace and quiet. Work could _wait_.

She and Joel left that morning with the intention of spending the evening at the far watchpost on the southern route. That particular watchpost was an old house hidden back away from the main path in an overgrown little clearing. Despite its age and the encroaching progression of decay, it had been maintained through the years by Jackson’s patrolmen and was well taken care of all things considered, complete with serviceable amenities and a solid fence to keep anything without a working frontal cranial lobe of the brain out. All in all, the watchpost was quaint and quiet - not a bad place to relax for a night, which they were both itching to do.

But, for the time being, they were still on duty. They’d walked the southern route without taking a break for most of the day, clearing the path with borrowed machetes and keeping an eye out for anything fishy. It was quiet, with the exception of a host of angry squirrels and a couple curious deer, so they made quick work.

They’d walked to the route’s halfway point when Joel stopped them. He waved his hand, gesturing for her to follow him off the main path. “Come on, I want to show you what Tommy and I found.”

Lucy trailed along behind him, hacking vegetation out of the path. “Where are we going?”

“It’s a surprise.”

“I don’t trust surprises,” Lucy teased and winked. “But I guess I’ll make an exception for you.

Joel rolled his eyes but returned her grin. “Come on, you’ll like it.”

He led them to a small creek hidden by overgrown vegetation. Without hesitating and without warning, he jumped into the creek and breached the surface with a gasp, shaking off the shock of cold water. Once he caught his breath, he called for her to follow after him.

Lucy jumped in, the freezing water knocking the breath out of her. She surfaced with a gasp, spitting water, her hair dripping in rivers down her face.

She coughed. “You get to help me wash my hair when we get back!”

Joel laughed. “I was already planning on doing that.”

As if Lucy needed more of a reason to get back to the watchpost _quickly_. A hot shower and Joel’s fingers in her hair? Heaven could scarcely compete.

Lucy swam along behind him, eyes trained on his back. She wasn’t a strong swimmer, but she could follow along well enough. He was like a fuckin’ fish out here in the water but at least stayed mindful that she wasn’t quite as strong of a swimmer.

Joel led them up to the creek bed and held out his hand, pulling her up to her feet as she crawled out onto the sand.

“I’ve had enough exercise for today, thank you,” Lucy hassled, keeping hold of Joel’s hand.

Joel led them down another overgrown path, hacking at vegetation as he went. Just past a particularly voluminous outcropping of shrubs and vegetation was a cluster of buildings surrounding an enormous fake dinosaur.

The dinosaur rose up above the trees like a beacon. A very strange, funny beacon, but a beacon, nonetheless. The plastic form glistened in the sun from the accumulated humidity, yellowed from years of neglect. Still, it was spectacular – an anomaly all the way out here in the middle of the forest.

“Is this a museum?"

He nodded. "Yep. The natural sciences museum."

The building itself was huge and decrepit, but still oddly majestic even in the state of disrepair. Much like every other building, it was well on its way to returning to nature, but the encroaching vegetation and disrepair only served to make it that much more beautiful. It _was_ the natural sciences museum, after all. Seemed only fitting.

"This is so cool, Joel!" 

Joel couldn’t quite keep the conspiratorial smugness out of his voice. What a _dad_. "I think I'll bring Ellie out here for her birthday in a couple of weeks."

"She'll love it." 

Joel led her into the clearing past the dinosaur. “It gets better.”

They walked up the stone steps to the front door. It had been opened and resealed by a rusted old crowbar shoved through the door handles, likely by Tommy and Joel the last time they were there. Joel motioned for Lucy to help him pry the door open, and after a lot of strained curses, they managed to pry the doors open again.

Being that there was no electricity, the inside of the museum was dark – still untouched by the sun in this part of the building. They both grabbed their flashlights and crossed the threshold, careful to watch for anything out of the ordinary.

Joel padded quietly down the hallway, pointing his flashlight in every corner. “We cleared it when we found it, but better safe than sorry.”

“I’m more afraid of the dinosaur bones.”

The dinosaur exhibit remained untouched by the years. The exhibits had been well-preserved, the bones yellowed with age. They walked through the full enclosure, stopping every now and then to read the plaques.

Joel stooped to read one of the plaques. The little marble etching stated that it was a velociraptor. “I thought I’d bring her through here first before the planetarium.”

“She’s gonna lose her mind, Joel,” Lucy grinned. "She's been even nerdier lately since the night guard found all those old science books."

Joel hummed in agreement. “I have no idea what she’s talking about most of the time.”

“Me either.”

He snorted. “You’re an engineer.”

Lucy shrugged. “Hey, I just fix stuff. Doesn’t mean I know what a comet is made of.”

"If you say so," Joel smirked. “Wanna check out the planetary exhibit?”

“I’m following you.”

They kept on creeping through the hallways, guns drawn, but saw no sign of anything sinister. Clearly, Joel and Tommy had done a good job of clearing the place out.

Similar to the dinosaur exhibit, the planetary exhibit was right in Ellie’s wheelhouse; she’d been searching for anything and everything space-related for weeks. Even the comic books she managed to get her hands on had shifted from overt violence (she’d had a ninja phase) to everything interstellar.

Joel led Lucy through the planetary exhibit and into one of the back rooms. It was huge expanse, circular and tiered like a coliseum. The domed roof overhead was studded with lights, and in the middle of the ceiling hung a dusty old projector.

Lucy peered upward, shining her flashlight at the ceiling. The blown bulbs glittered uselessly. “I guess this was supposed to be the planetarium.”

“I was kind of hoping Tommy and I could get the lights on, but we didn’t have any luck with that.” Joel scanned the room for anything moving. “We found a generator in the back, but it was dead.”

“I could take a look at it?” Lucy offered. Even if she couldn’t fix it herself (no tools), she could at least figure out what was wrong with it so Joel could fix it when he brought Ellie.

“I didn’t bring you out here to fix a generator.”

“I know.” Lucy stretched up on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek. “Where’s it at, darlin’?”

He shook his head, knowing that it would be futile to fight her on it. “Come on. Through the back.”

Lucy followed him into the backroom. It was little more than an office supply closet, but there was enough room for both of them to squeeze in. She sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the generator, searching for an access panel. When she found it and wiggled it free, she peered into the structure with her flashlight. Above her, Joel shined his light down to give her a better view.

Upon initial inspection, Lucy didn’t see anything immediately wrong with it. There was even a thin layer of gas in the tank. Likely, the contraption was just too old to function. Maybe someone had lived in here and used it until it finally gave out.

“I’d need some tools or equipment to get a better look around,” Lucy said, shoving wires out of the way so she could clear out enough space to get a good view. “Do you see anything in here I could use?”

“There’s nothing. We checked last time.”

“Shit.” She bit her lip, thinking. “We could take it back with us?”

“The only way back is through the creek.”

Lucy studied the parts she could actually reach. “This really bothers me.”

Joel’s reply was gentle. “It’s the thought that counts.”

“I know… Just…” And there, she saw it – a jumble of wires near the back, almost completely out of sight among the mass of parts, that looked like they’d been chewed through. “Wait, aim the flashlight down here.”

Joel did as she asked, kneeling down to get a better angle. Lucy gently separated the wires and pulled them free. With a practiced hand, she peeled back the rubber coating with her nails (age had weakened the rubbed to almost powder) and twisted the copper wires back together in the proper order before replacing the whole part back into the generator.

She slid the panel back into place and stood up. “Try starting it now.”

Joel yanked on the starting lever, and after a few tries, the generator roared to life, fueled by the barest whispers of gas that remained in the tank. He switched it back off just as quickly, mindful of the limited resources.

The grin on his face was visible even in the spare lighting. “You’re a genius.”

Lucy laughed. “Anything is fixable if you’ve got enough time.”

“The projector shouldn’t be too hard to figure out,” Joel observed. He shut the supply closet door behind them and blocked it by a chair just in case some wild animal (or person) decided to wander through. “Maybe it has a program or something.”

“We can test it out if you want?”

Joel shook his head. “No, we should head back. It’s getting late, and I can’t promise I could get us back to the main path in the dark.”

“Yeah, and after that jump in the creek, I’m in the mood for a hot shower.” The damp bun on her head had been a constant reminder for the past couple of hours of exploration. “We can always come back tomorrow.”

* * *

**August 2036 – Jackson, Wyoming**

The late-August morning was absolutely sweltering even though the sun had barely peaked over the horizon. Ordinarily, on a morning so hot, Lucy would have shown up to the front gate in shorts to combat the absolute misery. But it was Sunday, which meant that she had morning patrol. Therefore, she wore the usual uniform of long pants and long sleeves to keep the environment at bay and wished for any breeze _at all_ to blow through.

Most Sundays, she and Joel would relieve the night guard and enjoy their short early morning patrol. Today, though, she and Maria would head out for patrol after she saw Joel and Ellie off on their camping trip. 

Lucy met Joel at the gate that morning after leaving directly from the power plant. His hair was still damp from his morning shower (ugh, a hot shower after days down at the power plant would be _awesome_ – that would be Lucy’s first order of business after patrol), and he was clearly working hard to keep the grin off of his face. If anything, he was probably more excited to take Ellie camping than the girl would be to actually see the museum.

It would be a while before Maria met Lucy at the gate, so she dropped her backpack and leaned her rifle against the enclosure. She stood up on her tiptoes to hug Joel good morning.

Joel lingered in the hug just a little too long. It had taken a while for him to get used to being casually affectionate – particularly in public – but he’d eased into it after a month or so. Now, nearly ten months after he’d kissed her at the music store, he’d finally re-learned how to be comfortable in this routine.

Her voice was muffled against the crook of his neck. “Be careful, okay?”

It had been a few days since he’d seen her, so while Joel let go, he still didn’t step away. “Are you sure you don’t want to come with us? We can wait?”

“No, this is your gift to her. You two go have fun.” Ellie would turn sixteen on Saturday, and with both of them off camping, Lucy could use the next few days to plan for the party. Hopefully, Ellie would like the museum. “I’ll keep planning the surprise party.”

He nodded. “Alright.”

Joel bent to kiss her goodbye. It was soft and quick, just a bare brush of his lips, but it was _almost_ enough to incite Lucy to go with them. And, of course, it was interrupted just as quickly.

“ _Gross_.”

Lucy jerked back as Ellie appeared behind them. “Where did you come from?”

Ellie made a face and poked out her tongue. “You’ll scare the horses if you do that in public.”

Lucy rolled her eyes and grabbed her. “Come here.”

She pulled Ellie to her and kissed the top of her head, holding her still even though she fought to get out of her grip.

“No, _quit_!”

Lucy still didn’t release her, but Ellie quit struggling and went limp. Lucy could have just dropped her, but instead, she hugged her. “Be safe and act like you’ve got some sense, please.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yeah, I bet you don’t,” Lucy grumbled, finally releasing the girl from her grip. “After that shit you pulled when I supervised your patrol last week, you better be glad he’s taking you camping at all.”

“I _said_ I’d be more careful,” Ellie whined, reminding everyone present that even in the face of the apocalypse, teenagers are still _teenagers_. “This could be our last conversation, and you’re yelling.”

Where had Lucy heard that before? Not only had Ellie picked up Joel’s bad habits, it looked like she’d picked up a few of Lucy’s, too.

Joel snorted. “I’ll keep her in check.”

“Oh, whatever,” Ellie puffed.

Lucy gave her a quick last hug. “Be good, twerp.” 

Lucy hugged Joel again, very much aware that he was trying hard not to laugh.

He dipped down to kiss her cheek and leaned in close to her ear. “I thought _I_ was strict.”

“ _You_ are. _I’m_ a pushover.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” he teased. “It would take _at least_ a stiff breeze.”

“Ha-ha,” Lucy said, pursing her lips. “If you’re not back by Saturday, I’m coming to find you.”

“We’ll stay on the path.”

Lucy bid them goodbye and watched their retreating backs disappear down the southern path while she waited for Maria to arrive. They’d been in Jackson for two years now (this would mark year six for Lucy, which was downright unbelievable), and in that time, they’d both managed to settle in as though they’d always belonged there.

For Lucy, watching them both settle in had been an _adventure_. Joel had taken longer to settle in than Ellie had, but the change in both of them was a stark contrast to the pair of near-feral humans who’d shown up at the gates after _whatever_ had happened on their journey. Joel was still working on un-learning twenty-plus years of hardened survivor’s instincts, but he’d relaxed into Jackson’s environment for the most part. Ellie was slowly becoming a normal, irresponsible – if uncommonly self-sufficient – teenager.

And Lucy was just glad she’d gotten to watch it happen.

After about half an hour, the night guard returned from patrol, and Maria arrived not long after them.

Maria’s face was gaunt and the circles under her eyes were deep, but she appeared to be in good spirits. She didn’t usually take patrol duty – only on special occasions. Since her dad passed the year before, she’d been confined to guard duty or her office. But Tommy – Lucy’s usual patrol partner when Joel couldn’t take a patrol shift – was under the weather, so Maria had elected to take his spot.

“Tommy feelin’ better yet?” Lucy asked, motioning for Maria to follow her.

“Seems to be. He didn’t throw up last night,” Maria replied. “Thanks for the soup, by the way. He finally finished the rest of it at dinner yesterday.”

“Chicken soup heals all.” 

“Even food poisoning, apparently.”

"No kidding. That shit’s pretty gnarly," Lucy observed. "I hope you bothered Sam about it."

"He got a good earful, I'll say that."

They stopped at the supply station to grab breakfast and munitions before heading out on the short path. The night guard – two seasoned patrolmen whose main jobs were night patrol – had set themselves up with a tidy breakfast while they returned their equipment. They had nothing of note to report and gave Maria and Lucy the all-clear on the path.

The first half patrol was predictably quiet. It was so early that, although the heat was already unbearable, the sun was barely breaking through the trees. A whippoorwill squawked its name over and over in the distance, and the answering call of a flock of crows ripped through the trees, but otherwise all was calm.

Lucy spent the first half of patrol briefing Maria on the state of the power plant. With no power outages that year (thanks to the parts she and Joel recovered from the Cheyenne dam), they wouldn’t need to go out scavenging for parts.

They hit the halfway mark on the route without incident. No infected, no humans, not even an animal other than the squawking birds anywhere to be found. Perfectly peaceful.

That is, until the screaming started.

The sound quelled, reverberating though the trees from an unknown direction. They both started and hit the ground, scrambling behind the nearest tree so they could catch their bearings.

Lucy peered around the edge of the tree, the butt of her rifle shoved up against her shoulder. “Can you tell where that’s coming from?”

Maria concentrated in the direction they’d come from, but the screaming didn’t appear to be coming from behind them. “Sounds like it’s down the hill. Might be infected.”

“The night guard didn’t report anything.”

“Maybe they just missed it.”

Lucy flicked the safety off her rifle. “Well, whatever it is, let’s go take care of it.”

They crept up to the edge of the hill, Maria stalking forward though the thicket of trees while Lucy kept watch on the path behind them.

They couched down out of sight once they located a safe place to observe. What they found was… brutal.

“We’re too late,” Maria said, pulling Lucy forward on her knees. “Look.”

At the bottom of the steep mountain hill was a group of infected – stalkers, judging by their slight builds. At their feet (and in their mouths) were the remains of what looked to be a group of hunters, if their ragged utilitarian clothing was any indication. They hunters had been torn to shreds in the wake of the ambush, made into a meal by the most predatory of infected.

Maria shook her head. “I don’t think the poor bastards even saw them coming.”

“Where _did_ they come from? I thought we cleared this area,” Lucy asked.

“They look like stalkers.”

“It doesn’t make sense – stalkers don’t walk out into broad daylight.”

Maria shrugged. “Well, they must have been hiding in a basement somewhere around here. Those hunters must have stirred them up.”

“Well, I’ll keep watch behind us while you pick them off,” Lucy said. “If stalkers are changing their hunting patterns, we can’t let them get behind us. We don’t want to end up like those hunters.”

“No surprises.”

Maria rested the rifle on her shoulder and lined up her shots. There were five stalkers in all, all of them single-mindedly munching on their prey. They would remain focused on their meal, giving her plenty of opportunity to pick them off. She took a deep breath and fired.

The stalkers dropped one by one, screeching out wet, final breaths as they expired. When they were all left twitching involuntarily on the ground, the two women crouched and made their way quietly down the path.

Maria tiptoed through the carnage, nudging the bodies as she went. Lucy did the same and recoiled when one of the hunters groaned in a thin, pained sigh.

“This one’s still breathing, ‘Ree,” Lucy said, crouching down next to the hunter. All along his arms and down one of his legs, bite oozed dark blood. “He’s got bites, though.”

The hunter drew a ragged breath and struggled to prop up on his elbows. He held up his hand - a hand that was missing the trigger finger. “Remember me?”

Cutting off someone’s fingers is hard to forget. “You’re one of those Fireflies we caught last year.”

“And you’re the one we were looking for,” the hunter replied, glaring up at her. “I knew who you were when you cut my fucking finger off.”

“I should’ve cut your whole fucking hand off.” Lucy nudged his chewed-up arm with the tip of her boot. “I guess you told your commander where I am.”

The hunter rested back into the dirt, winded from his movements. “Yeah.”

“Thanks, asshole.”

He sighed, thick and wet. By the sound of it, the infection was already growing in his lungs. “He’s coming for you."

“Figures.”

The hunter nodded at the remains strewn around them. "We were the advance scouts.”

“How far away is he?”

“Hasn’t left Olympia yet. When we don’t report back, he’ll send someone after us and come for you.”

“He’ll never find your bodies.”

“Doesn’t matter - he’s coming,” the hunter labored. “To know what you know and not use it... You’re a traitor.”

“You don’t even know what I know, and neither does your commander.” Lucy nodded down at all the bites. “But I wouldn’t worry too much about that anymore if I were you.”

“You gonna put me out of my misery?”

“If I were a little meaner, I’d let you turn,” Lucy said, standing up. She hefted her rifle and aimed down at the hunter’s head. “But I don’t want to clean up another mess.”

Lucy squeezed the trigger and stepped away from the hunter’s body.

Maria peered down at the deceased hunter. “So, the Fireflies are back?”

“Looks like it.”

“We can’t ignore it this time, Lou.”

“No, we can’t,” Lucy agreed. “We’re gonna have to put up a fight this time.”

“What I can’t figure out is, why now? If half their faction was murdered over two years ago and the other half got infected, why is he _just now_ coming to find you?”

“Gideon took everyone with him when he ran from the CDC except for me,” Lucy said, shrugging. “I guess I’m the last one left.”

“But you can’t research a vaccine without resources, and those resources don’t exist anymore.”

“I wonder if they may have found someone who’s immune…” Lucy posited, more to herself than Maria. “Or maybe he finally figured out the Fireflies never actually had the resources for it and found them somewhere else.”

“Unfortunately, I think we’re going to find out.”

“I think you’re right.”

Maria crossed her arms. “We’ll debrief Tommy when we get back and double the guard until we decide what to do.”

“Should we send someone after Joel and Ellie?”

“No, they’re on the southern route – they should be far enough away. And Joel can handle himself.” Maria turned and motioned for Lucy to follow her back up the hill to the path. “Speaking of which, does Joel know about…?”

Lucy cut her off. “I think he has an idea, but I haven’t told him.”

“He needs to know, Lou,” Maria said softly. “No more secrets.”

Lucy agreed. “No more secrets. Not if it’s gonna put everyone in danger.”

They cut it short, staying mindful of their surroundings. If there were any more stalkers wandering around in the trees, they’d have a hell of a time seeing them in time if they attacked.

“If Gideon’s faction shows up at the gate-”

Maria already knew where Lucy was going. “Don’t start. You’re not going anywhere with him.”

“He’ll kill everyone here if I don’t,” Lucy replied. “He lost whatever shred of humanity he had left a long time before FEDRA started bombing Atlanta.”

“We’ll have a plan in place by the time his people show up,” Maria assured, though it seemed to be more of an assurance for herself than Lucy. “I won’t lose you again.”

Lucy glanced up at Maria, though she didn’t notice. In the past six years, that was the closest Maria had ever gotten to admitting she’d made a mistake. Even sitting on Lucy’s hospital bed after she’d shown up at the gate six years ago near death and downright unrecognizable, that was as close as Maria had come to acknowledging the guilt she clearly still felt.

“If it’s between me and everyone else here, you can’t stop me,” Lucy stated. “Sometimes we have to make sacrifices, ‘Ree. You know that.”

“Doesn’t mean I’ll give you up without a fight.”

Upon reaching the gate, Maria beckoned Lucy to follow her back to her office. They had plans to make.

* * *

**Atlanta QZ, Georgia – CDC Building – June 2029**

“Why won’t you leave with me?”

Maria stood in the doorway to Lucy’s office, bags in hand, dressed and ready to go. She’d begged Lucy for days - _come with me_ , _I’ve got a convoy waiting for us_ , _they’ll have us out of here by the end of the day_. She’d received the same solid _no_ every single time.

Lucy, dressed in scrubs and a lab coat, orange hair pulled up into its usual functional bun, shook her head. “I can’t. We’re so close-”

“No, you’re not! You’ve been saying the same shit for fourteen years!”

“Maria…”

Maria dropped her bags on the tile floor. She pointed out the office window at the smoke flooding the sky hardly two blocks away. “The whole fucking city is rigged to blow! You saw that explosion this morning.”

“FEDRA said it was a gas leak at one of the downtown offices.”

“It was a _controlled detonation_ because the building was overrun with clickers,” Maria snapped. If anyone would know, it would be her – she was in charge of city planning and security. “They’ll start dropping bombs this time next year, just you wait. And this building will be ground-fucking-zero.”

“I can’t give up on this, ‘Ree. I figured it out - it’ll work this time.”

Maria shook her head, incredulous. “That’s what you said last time, too. And the time before that, and the time before that.” 

Lucy wouldn’t back down, and they both knew it. “I’ve worked on this for too long-”

Maria didn’t stay to listen.

“I’m not gonna wait around and watch you die when the bombs drop,” Maria snapped, scooping her bags up off the floor. She turned on her heel and snatched the office door open. “I’m going to Jackson to find my dad, and I’m leaving tonight. You can meet me there when you come to your fucking senses.”

“ _Maria_ -”

The door slammed shut, but Lucy didn’t run after her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HI, Y'ALL, I PASSED THE BAR EXAM THANK YOU GOODNIGHT
> 
> Don't worry, the smut shall return! And shit keeps getting real-er.


End file.
